“Black States”: Diasporic Affect in the Prose of Dionne Brand

Abstract

Analyzing several prose works by author Dionne Brand, this paper explores the degree to which contemporary theories of diaspora and affect, considered jointly, might direct new critical attention upon the frequent depiction of unnerving and impersonally circulating feeling in black art. A theory of ‘diasporic affect’ is cautiously advanced, mindful of the biases and academic fashionability of the terms ‘diaspora’ and especially ‘affect,’ yet hopeful that such a conjugated term may help provide a deeper critical appreciation of Brand’s prose oeuvre as an ethics, art practice, and cultural politics of ‘the unsettled.’