Affecting feminism: Questions of feeling in feminist theory

This special issue engages with the relationship between feminist theory and ‘the turn’. Through their analyses of a range of affective states, spheres sites, the authors in this volume pose critical questions regarding feminist engagements with affect, emotion and feeling. 1 They ask whether it is a positive move to put affect theory and feminist theory together, whether there are inherent risks, for example of depoliticisation, or of an -privileging of the individual; whether feminist theorists have made, or can, distinctive contributions to conceptualising affect; and what particular feminist theory can bring to bear. In different ways, the authors featured consider how we can understand the complex implications of the turn to affect and for feminist theory, and how we might examine its potentialities for theoretical, and social transformation.