Abstract:
Movement and mobility have always been entangled in how affect is conceptualized and understood. To be affected, after all, may also mean to be moved, as the condition of affectivity traverses senses of displacement, transformation, and passage. This is why stories about migration, of bodies crossing borders and cultures, are charged with emotions and feelings that are, in themselves, fraught with contradictions that intervene in public discourses. This talk looks at the development of affect studies at the intersections of class, race, gender, sexuality, and postcoloniality while also exploring the emerging literary and cultural texts written by migrant underclass from Southeast Asia. Through the lens of affect, migrant writings illustrate the importance of the ordinary and the everyday in understanding the larger themes of colonialism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asian literature.

Biography:

Carlos M. Piocos III is a professor of literature and cultural studies at the Department of Literature of De La Salle University (DLSU). He has published widely on literature, cinema, gender, sexuality, activism and transnationalism in international peer-reviewed journals, and his book, Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration, was published by Routledge in 2021. He is also the editor and translator of the anthology of Indonesian migrant women’s fiction, Bantay Salakay sa Loob ng Aking Bahay (‘Intruders at Home: Anthology of Short Stories by Indonesian Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan’), published in 2020, and a poet who have published two poetry collections Corpus (University of Sto. Tomas Publishing House, 2010) and Kung ang Siyudaday Pag-ibig (‘If the City were the Beloved’, University of the Philippines Press, 2019).