Affect theory is coming to trauma theory. In fact it’s already here. The best account I’ve read is Ruth Leys “Trauma and the Turn to Affect.” A historian of science, Leys is the author of the highly regarded Trauma: A Genealogy. This post is indebted to her work.
The main thing to understand about affect theory is that it has nothing to do with affect–that is, feeling and emotion. According to affect theorists, affect is a
pre-subjective force that operates independently of consciousness or the phenomenological concept of subjectivity. (Leys, 2012)
Affect is a mental state, separate from belief and desire, the affect program system as it is called. Affect is the body acting on itself, free of cognition and emotion on the one hand, the quality of the stimulus, or stressor, on the other. If this sounds weird, stick with me.
As Patricia Clough puts it,
Trauma is the engulfment of the ego in memory. But memory might be better understood not as unconscious memory so much as memory without consciousness and therefore, incorporated, body memory, or cellular memory. (p. 6)
