Ann Cvetkovich
Public Feelings
South Atlantic Quarterly 106:3, Summer 2007
Begun in 2001, our investigation has coincided with and operated in
the shadow of September 11 and its ongoing consequences—war in Iraq, a
sentimental takeover of 9/11 to underwrite militarism, Bush’s reelection,
and the list goes on. Rather than analyzing the geopolitical underpinnings
of these developments, we’ve been more interested in their emotional
dynamics. What makes it possible for people to vote for Bush or to assent to
war, and how do these political decisions operate within the context of daily
lives that are pervaded by a combination of anxiety and numbness? How
can we, as intellectuals and activists, acknowledge our own political disap-
pointments and failures in a way that can be enabling? Where might hope
be possible? Those questions stem from our experience of what one of our
cells, Feel Tank Chicago, has called “political depression,” the sense that
customary forms of political response, including direct action and critical
analysis, are no longer working either to change the world or to make us
feel better. The concept of political depression is not, however, meant to be
wholly depressing; indeed, Feel Tank has operated with the camp humor
one might expect from a group of seasoned queer activists, organizing an
International Day of the Politically Depressed in which participants were
invited to show up in their bathrobes to indicate their fatigue with tradi-
tional forms of protest and distributing T-shirts and refrigerator magnets
carrying the slogan “Depressed? It Might Be Political!”1 The goal is to depa-
thologize negative affects so that they can be seen as a possible resource for
political action rather than as its antithesis. This is not, however, to suggest
that depression is thereby converted into a positive experience; it retains
its associations with inertia and despair, if not apathy and indifference, but
these affects become sites of publicity and community formation.
Posts
