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In prose sometimes somber, often high-spirited, and always accessible and moving, Touching Feeling interrogates—through virtuoso readings of works by Henry James, J. L. Austin, Judith Butler, the psychologist Silvan Tomkins and others—emotion in many forms. What links the work of teaching to the experience of illness? How can shame become an engine for queer politics, performance, and pleasure? Is sexuality more like an affect or a drive? Is paranoia the only realistic epistemology for modern intellectuals? Ultimately, Sedgwick's unfashionable commitment to the truth of happiness propels a book as open-hearted as it is intellectually daring.

Average Customer Rating:

amazing

Customer Rating:

This is one of the best works of "post-" theory that I've read, and the essay on paranoia is a much-needed light in the haze of contemporary grad school education. My copy is dog-eared and dirty and filled with underlined passages / scrawled notes to myself (mostly reading "YES!" or "come back to this"). Sedgwick's essays are brilliant, quirky, challenging, and deeply moving. I really can't find words sufficient for my experience -- this is certainly one of the most synaesthetic and vertigo-inducing books I've read in a long time. The final essay, in particular, continues to call me back.