Abstract

Reading is often regarded as a public good and an essential part of developing almost every aspect of human potential. In this article, we survey the “affective economies” of literary reading through a textual and visual analysis of documents issued by Chile’s Ministry of Education. Through a critical and diffractive reading of these documents with Ahmed’s (2004, 2010) and Braidotti’s (2018) conceptualizations of the affective, we claim that when reading is presented as beneficial, pleasurable, and promising, an assemblage of exclusion is set into motion. We describe how the affective repertoires in these documents reinforce oppressive and exclusionary neoliberal values under the guise of the promise of future happiness. The pleasure and happiness that can be achieved through literary reading, however, is only accessible to those who are willing to orientate themselves in the “right ways.” In this orientation, the cognitive is privileged over the emotional, and readers are supposed to learn to postpone any current demands for the promise of future happiness.

摘要

阅读通常被视为一种公共物品，是开发人类潜能几乎所有方面的重要组成部分。在本文中，我们通过对智利教育部发布的文件的文本和视觉分析来调查文学阅读的“情感经济”。通过使用 Ahmed (2004, 2010) 和 Braidotti (2018) 的情感概念化对这些文件进行批判性和衍射阅读，我们声称，当阅读被呈现为有益、愉悦和有希望时，排斥的组合就会启动。我们描述了这些文件中的情感曲目如何以对未来幸福的承诺为幌子强化压迫性和排他性的新自由主义价值观。然而，通过文学阅读可以获得的快乐和幸福，只有那些愿意以“正确的方式”定位自己的人才能访问。在这个方向上，认知优先于情感，读者应该学会推迟对未来幸福承诺的任何当前需求。