歐美研究季刊 第45卷第1期

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EURAMERICA Vol. 45, No. 1 ( March 2015), 1-38
© Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
Affect and History
in Ninotchka Rosca’s State of War*

Shu-ching Chen
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
National Chung Hsing University
No. 250, Kuo Kuang Road, Taichung 40227, Taiwan
E-mail:
Abstract
Drawing upon cultural theories of affect, and Lauren
Berlant’s concepts of affect and historiography, this paper
examines the affective history of the nation in State of War,
a novel by US-based Filipino writer Ninotchka Rosca,
through an investigation of the linkages between historical
events, everyday practices, imperial intimate encounters, and
the formation of the affective subjects. The paper contends
that the public events/history of the nation — war,
colonialism, rule changes, institutional violence— invades
and reshapes the characters in their everyday lives, and
positions them not as national subjects but affective subjects.
Historically, under conditions of imperial intimacy,
Received March 19, 2014; accepted December 15, 2014; last revised October 28,
2014
Proofreaders: Pei-Yun Lee, Pi-Mei Lin, Fang-Yi Chen
* This paper is based on the findings of a research project (NSC 99-2410-H-005-
006-MY2) funded by National Science Council (Ministry of Science and
Technology since 2014) in Taiwan. The author wishes to thank the two
anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and constructive revised
suggestions.