Is the affective sense of meaning, purpose, and immanence a useful political horizon? Is this discourse of utopia something that we should seek to synthesize in religious or secular political contexts, even if its nostalgic historical reality is not born out in factual analysis?
The burgeoning subfield of queer and trans studies in religion is opening up avenues for understanding our bodily attachments within and beyond religion. With Berlant’s sensibility as a guide, scholars of queer and trans studies in religion might seek to explore the paradoxes of desire and love that Berlant theorized with a generosity, curiosity, and clarity we can all hope to emulate.
Berlant is our preeminent contemporary theorist of how intimate practices bleed into and with national formations, and condition specific and powerful fantasies for what a good life or functional society would involve. To read their work is to become attuned to a set of dynamics that can be excavated in any given scene: the attachments being made and unmade, the forms of belonging that flash up and dissolve, the feeling-worlds that mediate everyday life, what remains unfinished.