Introduction

The Introduction provides both the theoretical and chronological exposition necessary to follow Lyotard’s elaboration of affect. It outlines the different “periods” of his philosophy and explains the key terms necessary for an understanding of his thinking on affect as it relates to the six topics that this book takes up: Lyotard’s definition of affect as an “unarticulated phrase,” and the relation of affect to the work of art and its commentary, the “figural,” the sublime in the era of digital technologies, postmodern politics, and the task of thinking. It explicates the notions of “differend” and “phrase” that lay the ground that will allow Lyotard to insist upon the radical incommensurability of affect with articulation. It also examines the notions of the “figural” (as elaborated in his major work on aesthetics, Discourse, Figure), of the sublime (through his reading of Kant) of postmodernity and the position of theory as they relate to his conception of affect.