Affect and the Study of Religion

Abstract

This article provides an introduction to affect theory in the study of religion. While emotion and affect appear to be similar, particularly given their shared lineage in the passions, the distinguishing aspects of affect provide critical supplements to the study of religion. After a brief discussion of emotion and affect in Spinoza, the article maps three aspects of affect theory that invite us to consider religion in its persistent dynamism: affect theory's turn away from the individual as the bearer of emotion to the social lives that emerge between bodies and things, its attention to corporeality and materiality, and its focus on non-representational creative energy. The article closes with key forays in affect and religious studies and some future directions for affect and the study of religions in the Americas.