There are numerous descriptions of affect within literary criticism, including those focused on the human psyche, reader or author contexts, time-spaces and places, non-human vibrance, and the notion that affect involves yet exceeds us. Since this year's PAMLA theme is "Shifting Perspectives," a panel with more than one understanding of affect is fitting. Whether you study Sara Ahmed, Brian Massumi, Lauren Berlant, Sianne Ngai, Gillies Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Jenny Sharpe, Claire Colebrook, Eve Sedgwick, Rei Terada, Hsuan L. Hsu, or any of the growing number of theorists which address affect in their work, this panel is for you!

To embolden the PAMLA theme this year, there is certainly a shift in perspective awaiting us through another look at Jorge Luis Borges' work (whether that be through an under-discussed work or a well-known text such as "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" or "The Library of Babel"); however, essays on any 20th century short fiction are welcome.* To follow, are questions to consider, but please note this list is not meant to set limits on the panel:

Some theorists read affect as involving, yet distinct from, emotion, while others discuss affect and emotion as analogous. What can a work of 20th century short fiction show us about this tension? Is affect “what happens to us when we feel an event,” rather than feeling itself, as Colebrook suggests in Understanding Deleuze (xix)? Considering another aspect, if affect is read as an active and unmeasurable form of effect, how might historical fiction show histories as affective across time and place? Which textual details or stylistic elements might point to affect as spatial, atmospheric, or readable through setting? If you read affect as a force beyond any one person, where does an analysis of affect begin in a story told through one mind or focused on individual feelings, thoughts, and dialog? Is affect in concert with psychoanalysis in your reading; if so, In what ways, and to what extent? If we do focus on the individual, how might we discuss an event of turning toward/turning away? How might your primary text shift these questions to offer another perspective on affect theory, or resist these lenses with its own theory? Further, for your essay’s fiction of focus, can the questions above underscore issues of cultural difference, racialization, or nationalism? Analytical leans, or stakes, towards poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, critical theories, posthumanities, feminisms, anticolonialisms, or something entirely different than what has been expressed here, are equally suitable as we take up the phenomenon of affect within 20th century short fiction to develop a dynamic conversation for PAMLA's 120th Annual Conference.

*This CFP has been updated to include analyses of any work of 20th century short fiction; if you saw the first version that was focused on Borges’ work only, you may continue to use that prompt. The inital CFP was written to support the conference theme described here: https://www.pamla.org/conference/2023-conference-theme/