Affect Theory in Reading Research: Imagining the Radical Difference

Abstract

Working through four key tenets of Deleuze–Guattarian theory, the authors describe how contemporary affect theory offers a radically different perspective on reading. Asking how we can conceptualize reading differently if we conceptualize affect differently, we argue that possible meanings of reading or experiences of reading must be considered not as inherent to internal experiences of reading but as composed and recomposed in sets of affective relations. Using an example of two children reading, we consider how reading, as a material doing, takes up and is taken up by bodies, materials, spaces, histories, feelings, and ideas. To consider affect as the property of sets of present relations rather than of the individual prompts us to consider how the various elements assemble and break apart to produce intensities in which reading participates. Deprivileging human intentionality or motivations, we ask, “In a given instance, what conditions of possibility are being produced and for whom, and how are participants taking up or being moved by those conditions?” We conclude with suggestions for how contemporary affect theory can reorient our understanding of reading research.     

Children's reasoning about evaluative feedback

Children's reasoning about the willingness of peers to convey accurate positive and negative performance feedback to others was investigated among a total of 179 6‐ to 11‐year‐olds from the USA and China. In Study 1, which was conducted in the USA only, participants responded that peers would be more likely to provide positive feedback than negative feedback, and this tendency was strongest among the younger children. In Study 2, the expectation that peers would preferentially disclose positive feedback was replicated among children from the USA, and was also seen among younger but not older children from China. Participants in all groups took the relationship between communication partners into account when predicting whether peers would express evaluative feedback. Results of open‐ended responses suggested cross‐cultural differences, including a greater emphasis by Chinese children on the implications of evaluative feedback for future performance, and reference by some older Chinese children to the possibility that positive feedback might make the recipient ‘too proud’.     

The Suicide of Seymour Glass

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the suicide of Seymour Glass, a major character in J. D. Salinger's fiction and utilizes the “psychological autopsy” technique as a framework for investigating the psychodynamics of Seymour's death. Based upon materials provided throughout Salinger's stories, the suicide is analyzed in terms of five major elements related to Seymour's emotional state and manifest behaviors: (1) details of the death; (2) personal history; (3) level of perturbation; (4) personality and life-style; and (5) intention and lethality of the act. Additionally, this essay posits various interpretations of the suicide and allows for insights into the psychodynamic functioning of a major literary character.