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Special Section: Phantoms Limn

Silvan Tomkins and Affective Prosthetics

University of British Columbia, adafrank{at}interchange.ubc.ca

This article translates aspects of Freud's analysis of uncanny experiences and feelings using Silvan Tomkins' writing on the taboos on looking and phantom limb phenomenon. Centering on a poem by Emily Dickinson that has often been read in terms of the return of the repressed, the article argues that Dickinson's poem may be better understood using the idea of the sudden return or quickening of old, forgotten and overwritten visceral or kinesthetic theories. The article suggests that both Dickinson's poem and Freud's essay register peculiar experiences conditioned by photography as the graphic reproduction of facial affect, and proposes Tomkins' affect theory as a tool for better describing these media conditions.

Key Words: affect • memory • perception • phantom limb phenomenon • photography • poetry • uncanny

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 17, No. 4, 515-528 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354307079301


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