This lecture is based around the idea of “affect,” which is a concept that has circulated widely in feminist thought if sometimes without clear definition. Professor Khanna shows how the field of psychoanalysis offers a concept of affect that is useful for the understanding of contemporary artistic practices that make affect into an object of analysis rather than simply an emotive force. She is particularly interested in the use of the visualization of an interface, and suggests that works by Derek Jarman and Shirin Neshat focus less on the spectacular nature of autobiographical expressiveness and more on the problem of the idea of affect as belonging. Ranjana Khanna is Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women’s Studies and Professor of English, Women’s Studies, and the Literature Program at Duke University. She works on Angloand Francophone Postcolonial theory and literature, and Film, Psychoanalysis, and Feminist theory. She has published widely on transnational feminism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial and feminist theory, literature, and film.



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