Clara Fischer (QUB) 'Affect and Emotion in Jane Addams’s Thought' 

Feminists have long been concerned with the affective dimension of our lives, and have highlighted its centrality to feminist, political analyses. More recently, there has been a renewed interest in affect and emotion, often referred to as an “affective turn”, which has seen contemporary theorists across the disciplines focusing on affect in political, but also ontological settings. In light of such recent, renewed interest in affect and emotion in feminist thought, this chapter examines what resources, if any, Jane Addams’s work offers theorists for the present context. While Addams is well known for including a diversity of voices in her writing, I want to draw out, in this chapter, the affectivity of this polyvocality and examine some particular emotions at play in her writing and life’s work. 

Contact Suzanne Whitten (suzanne.whitten@qub.ac.uk) for link.