Gabriela Passos Alves dos Santos: Un-Maintenances of Flattened Affectivities: Forms of Awareness on the Modern Subject

 

Thesis Advisor: Amit S. Rai

Thesis: Un-Maintenances of Flattened Affectivities: Forms of Awareness on the Modern Subject

February 2023

Abstract

I am proposing to approach nature in its naturalization, in which affectivity can be seen as an issue that supports the modern subject, referring to what Denise Ferreira da Silva calls a transparent “I.”2 For that purpose, I am interested in developing a written form that activates the possibility of displacing the “naturalized” fixed meanings of words and theories that reflect upon identity. In the first part of the thesis, I propose speaking about identity as a stagnated issue, followed by a discussion on nationalism and borders, where I present Da Silva's theory on culture. I introduce sea borders as environments that reflect the preservation of naturalization, presenting some of the last poems of Abdel Wahab Youssef, known as Latinos, a South Sudanese poet who tried to cross the border from Libya to Italy in August 2020, during the Covid Pandemic. In the second part, I focus on affectivity, connecting the theory on relations by Édouard Glissant with theorists such as Ali Lara, who discuss the necessity of relating affectivity and subjectivity. Finally, in the third part, I analyze ways to deal with affectivity as acts for dismantling its naturalization, focusing on the emergence of minor gestures of sharing and learning that go against the modern subject.

Author: Gabriela Passos Alves dos Santos