Encountering Berlant part two: Cruel and other optimisms. Issue 1 (25th December 2022)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Encountering Berlant part two: Cruel and other optimisms. Issue 1 (25th December 2022)
- Main Title:
- Encountering Berlant part two: Cruel and other optimisms
- Authors:
- Anderson, Ben
Awal, Akanksha
Cockayne, Daniel
Greenhough, Beth
Linz, Jess
Mazumdar, Anurag
Nassar, Aya
Pettit, Harry
Roe, Emma J.
Ruez, Derek
Salas Landa, Mónica
Secor, Anna
Williams, Aelwyn - Abstract:
- Abstract: Part 2 of Encountering Berlant amplifies the promise of Lauren Berlant's influential concept of 'cruel optimism'. Cruel optimism names a double‐bind in which attachment to an 'object' holds out the promise of sustaining/flourishing, whilst simultaneously harming. The lines between harming, sustaining, damaging and flourishing blur, sometimes collapsing entirely. By holding together opposites the concept exemplifies and performs the centrality of ambivalence to Berlant's thought, as well as their orientation to overdetermination and incoherence. Geographers and others have found in the concept a way of understanding the intersection between affective and political economies in the crisis‐present following the 2008 financial crisis. Together with Berlant's linked concepts such as 'crisis ordinariness' and 'impasse', cruel optimism has offered a way of understanding why detachment can be so difficult and how damaging conditions endure. Contributors begin from these starting points, amplifying the concept's promise: a new way of researching and writing about the reproduction of ordinary damage and harm. By writing from diverse encounters with Berlant's work, they move the concept in multiple directions, juxtaposing it with other optimisms across a variety of empirical scenes and locations. The result is a repository of what cruel optimism, and Berlant's mode of thinking‐feeling more broadly, offer geographers and others. Short Abstract: In Part Two of EncounteringAbstract: Part 2 of Encountering Berlant amplifies the promise of Lauren Berlant's influential concept of 'cruel optimism'. Cruel optimism names a double‐bind in which attachment to an 'object' holds out the promise of sustaining/flourishing, whilst simultaneously harming. The lines between harming, sustaining, damaging and flourishing blur, sometimes collapsing entirely. By holding together opposites the concept exemplifies and performs the centrality of ambivalence to Berlant's thought, as well as their orientation to overdetermination and incoherence. Geographers and others have found in the concept a way of understanding the intersection between affective and political economies in the crisis‐present following the 2008 financial crisis. Together with Berlant's linked concepts such as 'crisis ordinariness' and 'impasse', cruel optimism has offered a way of understanding why detachment can be so difficult and how damaging conditions endure. Contributors begin from these starting points, amplifying the concept's promise: a new way of researching and writing about the reproduction of ordinary damage and harm. By writing from diverse encounters with Berlant's work, they move the concept in multiple directions, juxtaposing it with other optimisms across a variety of empirical scenes and locations. The result is a repository of what cruel optimism, and Berlant's mode of thinking‐feeling more broadly, offer geographers and others. Short Abstract: In Part Two of Encountering Berlant, contributors engage with the promise of Lauren Berlant's most influential concept – 'cruel optimism'. By writing from multiple locations and empirical scenes, they find in the concept a new way of understanding the reproduction of everyday harms and damages. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Geographical journal. Volume 189:Issue 1(2023)
- Journal:
- Geographical journal
- Issue:
- Volume 189:Issue 1(2023)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 189, Issue 1 (2023)
- Year:
- 2023
- Volume:
- 189
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2023-0189-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- 143
- Page End:
- 160
- Publication Date:
- 2022-12-25
- Subjects:
- ambivalence -- cruel optimism -- harm -- Lauren Berlant
Geography -- Periodicals
910 - Journal URLs:
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-4959 ↗
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1111/geoj.12493 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0016-7398
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 4126.000000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 25719.xml