Not Quite Satisfied: Theoretical Curiosity and Queer Africa

Abstract

Curiosity is often prescribed as a cure for one's lack of awareness or knowledge. After tracing the operation of curiosity by recovering moments from the stories in which the affect of curiosity reveals itself to be particularly anxious and damaging to individuals, curiosity can be distinguished from objectification because of its unceasing drive to satiate (and its inability to deliver the desired satisfaction). This overall project also identifies how theorization is integral to the affective process of curiosity and argues that an interrogation of curiosity must also require a closer examination of how white, U.S.-based queer theory also enacts this affective process of curiosity through its unending theorization of queer of color bodies.