Feminist Formations

Abstract:

The recent explosive debates about trauma and trigger warnings in the classroom highlight the intensity of affective circulations within classrooms while simultaneously narrowing our understanding of how emotions function. When discussions of triggers construct feelings as individual, they may depoliticize emotion by obscuring the trauma of legacies of structural oppression. The recent "affective turn" enables an exploration of feelings as social, opening up space for political analysis of emotion and allowing us to theorize how "feeling differently" might contribute to, rather than displace, calls for justice. In this article, I argue for the importance of connecting the interpersonal and the structural. Only through setting these up as fundamentally intertwined can we navigate the complexities of trauma and triggers in the feminist classroom, in ways that can create affective space for anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic dialogue and practice. I use examples from my long experience as a teacher of gender studies to explore possible strategies for expanding our understanding of the interrelations of interpersonal pain and systemic violence, in order to be responsive to student feeling as we teach for social change.