Embodied subjectivity and the project of the contemporary literary essay

The essay's capacity to narrate a situated and embodied experience that entwines poetics, politics and affect enables the form a particular methodology. Contemporary critical theorist Rosi Braidotti has argued for the urgent need to revise theoretical aspects of affect and authenticity so as to more fully register the increasingly complex way we experience embodied subjectivity (2013). In this article, I argue that the contemporary literary essayist is well placed to negotiate such a revision, and that renewed interest in the form of the literary essay during the last two decades can be read as a timely contribution to such a project.