Affective Critical Regionality

Neil Campbell is Professor of American Studies and Research Manager at the University of Derby, U.K. He has published widely in American Studies, including the books American Cultural Studies with Alasdair Kean (Routledge, 2011), American Youth Cultures (ed, Edinburgh University Press, 2004) and co-editor of Issues on Americanisation and Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2004). His major research project is an interdisciplinary trilogy of books on the contemporary American West. The first two are The Cultures of the American New West (Edinburgh/Columbia UP, 2000) and The Rhizomatic West (Nebraska, 2008) and he has just completed the final part, Post-Westerns, on cinematic representation of the New West. He is, with Christine Berberich & Robert Hudson, co-editor of Land & Identity: Theory, Memory, and Practice (Rodopi, 2012) and with Alfredo Cramerotti co-editor of Photocinema (Intellect, 2013). Affective Landscapes also edited with Christine Berberich & Robert Hudson is forthcoming with Ashgate in 2014 as is the special section on ‘affective landscapes’ in the Journal Cultural Politics.

• Introduction: An Expanded Critical Regionalism / 1. From Regionalism to Regionality / 2. Charles Olson: ‘the motion which we call life’ / 3. D.J. Waldie: Suburban Regionality / 4. Kathleen Stewart: Fictocritical Regionality / 5. Rebecca Solnit: A New Atlas of Emotion / 6. Willy Vlautin’s Northline: Fugitive Work / 7. Karen Tei Yamashita: Border Cartographies, Border Refrains / 8. Conclusion: ‘not so much a deficiency as a resource’ / Bibliography / Index

Reaching across a diversity of writings Campbell brings the idea of the region into life in a newly human way, situating it amongst the variety of what makes up being alive. The text persistently inspires and enriches. He meshes the variety of key sources and with unusual clarity unpacks the idea of how affect works; the writing affective in itself.