Not Flattening the Foe: Teaching and Researching the Christian Far Right as Affect Economy

In an effort to make visible the affective dimension of intellectual work, Donovan Schaefer describes the satisfying feeling of “click” that motivates scholars to pursue discovery. In an affect economy, as described by Sara Ahmed, feelings circulate across bodies, concepts, space, and time to facilitate the maintenance of culture and society. What feelings, then, circulate in the study of the Far Christian Right? How do these feelings circulate between experienced scholars and beginners, like the undergraduates I teach? If the classroom is not neutral, religiously, politically, or emotionally, what do we do with it?  Can we avoid flattening the complex humanity out of the Christian right and also enumerate the threat to Canadian democracy posed by these communities?