Shifting the focus from human interiority toward the agency of cultural objects, social arrangements and aesthetic matter, How to Do Things with Affects examines the affective operations and transmissions triggered by various aesthetic forms, media events and cultural practices.

Ernst van Alphen, Ph.D. (1988), University of Utrecht, is Professor of Literary studies at the University of Leiden. His most recent books are Failed Images: Photography and Its Counter-Practices (2018) and Staging the Archive: Art and Photography in the Age of New Media (2014).

Tomas Jirsa, Ph.D. (2012), Charles University, is Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Literature at Palacký University Olomouc. He has published books and articles on the relations between modern literature and the visual arts, media theory, and the affective aesthetics of music videos.