Feeling Out of This World

Abstract

Reading Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this chapter examines the emotional tonalities of escape and escapism. Genre affect emerges as a way of thinking about the affective textures of speculative and visionary fiction. Where escape is a genre of change, genre affect emerges as a way to trace the feelings of colonialism, language, gender, and violence in their relationship to both the individual and the group.