Full Description
In Gestures of Concern Chris Ingraham shows that while gestures such as sending a "Get Well" card may not be instrumentally effective, they do exert an intrinsically affective force on a field of social relations. From liking, sharing, posting, or swiping to watching a TED Talk or wearing an "I Voted" sticker, such gestures operate as much through affective registers as they do through overt symbolic action. Ingraham demonstrates that gestures of concern are central to establishing the necessary conditions for larger social or political change because they give the everyday aesthetic and rhetorical practices of public life the capacity to attain some socially legible momentum. Rather than supporting the notion that vociferous public communication is the best means for political and social change, Ingraham advances the idea that concerned gestures can help to build the affective communities that orient us to one another with an imaginable future in mind. Ultimately, he shows how acts that many may consider trivial or banal are integral to establishing those background conditions capable of fostering more inclusive social or political change.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. The Shape We're In 1
1. Idiot Winds 23
2. Stickiness 51
3. Democratizing Creativity, Curating Culture 78
4. Citizen Artists, Citizen Critics 108
5. Uncommonwealth 133
6. Affective Commonwealths 161
Epilogue. The Poet and the Anthropocene 187
Notes 197
Bibliography 225
Index
