10.02.2021

Affect theory is a critical tool for examining how colonial legacies of racialization operate in the present. Yet the subfield of affect studies has not made “race” a central focus of scrutiny. This lecture builds on Fanon to propose that racialization is a paradigmatically affective process rooted in colonial histories, and proposes ‘affects of racialization’ as a useful frame for understanding that process today. The centrality of affect to racialization will be illustrated through cases of Native dispossession, environmental racism, and the struggle for Black life.