"The emotional housekeeping of the world": Affect in Alice Munro's and A. L. Kennedy's post-millennial short stories. (June 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Somacarrera, Pilar
• Is Part Of: Journal of Commonwealth literature. Volume 55:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 309
• Page End: 325
• Publication Date: 2020-06
• Subjects: affect theory -- Alice Munro -- A. L. Kennedy -- Canadian Literature -- emotion -- humanism -- postcolonial literature -- post-millennial fiction -- Scottish Literature -- short story; English literature -- Periodicals; Commonwealth literature (English) -- Periodicals; Littérature anglaise -- Périodiques; 820.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0021989418807241
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-9894

Abstract

In his introduction to Scottish Literature and Postcolonial Literature, Michael Gardiner argues for bringing together these two separate bodies of texts which are intimately joined. Within the context of the "'postcolonial' spaces of Scotland and Canada" (Gittings, 1995: 135), in this article I offer a comparative reading from the standpoint of Sara Ahmed's affect theory of the post-millennial short stories of A. L. Kennedy and Alice Munro, based on their shared belief in a transatlantic new humanism which privileges emotions.