The Evolution of Affect Theory

Across the humanities a set of interrelated concepts - excess becoming the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power. Some versions of affect theory rely on Gilles Deleuze''s concept of ''becoming'' proposing that affect is best understood as a field of dynamic novelty. Reconsidering affect theory''s relationship with life sciences Schaefer argues that this procedure fails as a register of the analytics of power. By way of a case study this work concludes with a return to the work of Saba Mahmood in particular her 2005 study of the women''s mosque movement in Cairo Politics of Piety.