Feeling brown, feeling down: latina affect, the performativity of race, and the depressive position

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Published: Jun 24, 2020
Keywords:
affect, depression, brown feeling, performance

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José Esteban Muñoz
Renata Prati
Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires - CONICET

Abstract

In this 2006 essay, theorist José Esteban Muñoz (1967-2013) addresses the problem of depression from a critical perspective, informed by gender and critical race studies. Discussing an installation work by artist Nao Bustamante, Muñoz draws on Melanie Klein’s concept of a depressive position, in connection with his own notion of brown feeling, in order to show “how depression itself is formed and organized around various historical and material contingencies that include race, gender, and sex”.

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How to Cite
Muñoz, J. E., & Prati, R. (2020). Feeling brown, feeling down: latina affect, the performativity of race, and the depressive position. Heterotopías, 3(5), 1–16. Retrieved from https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/heterotopias/article/view/29079
Issue
Vol. 3 No. 5 (2020): "Affective Turn and Social Discourses: Criticisms, Representations and Policies"
Section
Dossier
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Author Biographies

José Esteban Muñoz

José E. Muñoz (1967-2013) was an academic, essayist and thinker who transformed the field of queer studies and performance. He was born in Havana and soon emigrated to the United States with his family. He studied comparative literature and was professor and head of the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. Muñoz's work, written in English and so far barely translated, was characterized by his investigation of the intersections of culture, politics and sexual diversity, with particular emphasis on the work of contemporary countercultural artists in the United States. His first book, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999) is a foundational text of queer color criticism and represents one of the major contributions to minority research in the field of Performance Studies. The Spanish translation of his book Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity has recently been published.

Renata Prati, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires - CONICET

Renata Prati has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, and graduated after presenting her thesis on the problem of the dualism between body and soul in Jacques Derrida's thinking. She is currently doing her PhD in Philosophy under a doctoral scholarship from CONICET. The subject of her doctoral research is the shift from the notion of melancholy to that of depression. She has worked as an editor for several publishing houses in Argentina, and has translated books and articles from English, French and Italian. She has published articles and reviews in both specialized and popular academic journals.

renataprati@gmail.com

References

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Bustamante, N. (2003). Neapolitan [Instalación]. Producción independiente. Video disponible en línea: vimeo.com/60283405.
Newton, H. (1995). Crying Glasses (An Aid to Melancholia) [Fotografía]. De la serie Connotation Performance. Presentada en Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Reino Unido.

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