Christa Binswanger

In Cultural Studies, the affective turn is a response to the so-called crisis of representation. Insisting on a crucial difference, some theorists separate representation as it is addressed in psychoanalytic accounts of the subject, from pre-individual bodily capacities, as they are developed in affect theory. In our article, we are revisiting Freud's model of the mystic writing pad and present a metaphor enhancing an inclusive approach to both: the palimpsest. Following Ahmed and Butler, we understand subjectivity as a constant process of affective surfacing, in which intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions constitute each other. The metaphor of the palimpsest offers a way to theorize subjectivity as structured by power relations yet open to potentiality, paying attention to the intrapsychic as affective force within encounters between subjects. "Queering the palimpsest" disrupts the dichotomization of ontology versus epistemology, the dichotomous ways of gendering the subject and the "either-or-option" of affect theory and psychoanalysis.

How can we think of feminist coalitions and affective solidarity with regard to memories and queer temporalities? How can we develop a vision of political agency that embraces a history of marginalization and abjection (Love 2007)? And how can we conceptualize subjectivity as structured by power relations yet open to potentiality? In the German-speaking context, Angerer (2007) has stated that affect has replaced the sexuality-dispositive, displacing the psychoanalytical focus on desire. Following Angerer, Adorf & Christadler (2014) express unease about the repeated dichotomization of immediacy within Affect Studies and representation within Psychoanalysis, as immediacy and representation are mutually co-dependent, equally structured by temporality, intensity and memory. We propose a metaphor that enhances an inclusive approach to both: the palimpsest (Dillon 2007). If subjectivity is to be understood as a continual process of affective surfacing (Ahmed 2004), where intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions constitute each other, the palimpsest captures the complexity of this affective interplay. It conceptually maps subjectivity as a complex and open system, acquiring richly layered contours through encounter. The ecstatic subject (Butler 2009) and "the other" both surface through their affective co-constitution, evolving across time. Accordingly, subjectivity bears the potential for vulnerability (Butler 2009) as well as affective solidarity (Hemmings 2012). Exemplifying the binds between potentiality and representation, or between contingency and power relations, the palimpsest's temporality is suggestive of the permeability and demarcation that characterizes any affective subjectivity.