Negative Affect,SCUM, and the Politics of Possibility

Abstract

Negativity has been widely framed through Edelman’s “no future” orientation. While being productive, this orientation forecloses the potential negativity to foster coalitional alliances. Building off previous works about Valerie Solanas, I turn toward an investigation of the negative affective traces of her SCUM Manifesto to create paths of meaning-making beyond Edelman’s accounting. First, I examine how Solanas uses negative affect in her work. Second, I build from contemporary re-framings of negativity to imagine a possible reparative reading of SCUM. I argue that through her use of lived experience—specifically her narratives of violence, SCUM challenges the reader’s engagement with negativity. Within SCUM, there is a potential path of meaning-making through Solanas’ invocation of her own lived experience.