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What Does Lauren Berlant Teach Us about Affect, Mediation, and Global Nationalism?

Angharad Closs Stephens Orcid Logo

Media Theory, Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 191 - 208

Swansea University Author: Angharad Closs Stephens Orcid Logo

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Abstract

In this article, I show how Berlant offers important resources for thinking about the relationship between affect, mediation and global nationalism, and for considering how to build alternative forms of belonging. These resources include: how they address people’s sense of belonging to an affective...

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Published in: Media Theory
ISSN: 2557-826X
Published: 2023
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa65774
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Abstract: In this article, I show how Berlant offers important resources for thinking about the relationship between affect, mediation and global nationalism, and for considering how to build alternative forms of belonging. These resources include: how they address people’s sense of belonging to an affective space, and how they map the affective states that form part of living in the present under late capitalism. In these ways, Berlant offers material for helping us understand why nationalist ways of understanding belonging should appear so persistent, and continue to provide convincing narratives of attachment. The article goes on to outline methodological approaches pursued by Berlant, which I suggest others interested in engaging the mediation of national affects can adopt. This includes paying attention to moments that do not appear to form significant “national events”. Taken together, I demonstrate how these different elements can teach us a substantial amount about the rise of global nationalism.
Item Description: https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/581
Keywords: Nation, Nationalism, Affect, Populism, Method
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 2
Start Page: 191
End Page: 208