Allison R. G. Ross More than a Distillation: Review of Mari Ruti’s Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Affect debates within my discipline. Though the author does not reference media, I believe the book is relevant to those who study film with regard to the ideal versus particularized viewer and appreciating the subjectivity of the cinematic spectator. Discussions in Distillations can be linked to the projects of such posthumanist scholars such as Rosi Braidotti, as well as existential phenomenologists like Jenny Chamarette.1 Subjectivity, which takes into account a situated audience’s response and which is the central focus of Ruti’s analysis, is important to an understanding of the ontologies of experience and viewing. Ruti draws upon theorists, such as Lauren Berlant and Alan Baidou, who engage with either queer theory, neo-Platonism or both, to build a complex web of meanings that place the universal and the specific into tension. This tension is established in the Forward when the author introduces the difference between the “other” and the “Other.” While ostensibly to distinguish from the Levinasian Other and a broader examination of intersubjectivity, Bloomsbury Academic, August 2018, this also emphasizes that the other (with a small o), ISBN: 9781501333781 depends upon real world factors, such as the identity $148.50 (Hardcover), $44.09 (Paperback), $35.27 (eBook) of the subject and the other. In Chapter One, “The Posthumanist Universal: Mari Ruti introduces Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Between Precarity and Rebellion,” Ruti further Affect as a compilation and summary of a career explores the tension between universalism and spanning fields diverse as Lacanian psychoanalysis particularity, drawing upon philosophers and and continental philosophy. In addition to being an philosophies regularly brought into conversations invaluable primer to her broad body of scholarship, within Film Studies, especially around questions the book also stands on its own as an intriguing of existential versus transcendental approaches to revisiting of affect and queer theory. Ruti’s uses the phenomenology of spectatorship. She cites her background in diverse lines of reasoning the distrust of universality by those such as Sara to convincingly argue for a new, mediated and Ahmed and Maggie Nelson who move toward circumscribed formulation of affect theory, one that more empirical and particularized definitions of demands a radical reconfiguration of individual and subjects defined by factors variously identified as universal conceptions of the ideal subject. race, class, gender, class, and/or sexuality/sexual Often, I look beyond the scope of my research to orientation. The methodological trend to read discover sources that echo, enliven and contribute to empirical work as “particularized” (a term Ruti 66 Contagion Ennuri Jo and Michael Anthony Turcios, editors, Spectator 39:1 (Spring 2019): 36-44. ROSS uses synonymously with “identitarian” concerns) by thought through in conjunction with more recent Continental philosophers tends to silo this analysis, concerns. separating it from scholarship that centers around The theme of Chapter Three is centered around “universal” formulations of the subject. This approach Lacanian thought, in particular as concerns the constitutes a metadiscursive critique of this trend conflict between Lacanian subjectivity and political in critical theory, as Ruti questions the disciplinary philosophy (mostly originating from the Frankfurt logics and underlying assumptions which identify school). This section moves slightly away from and isolate individual “identitarian” subjects, even as issues central to cinema studies and toward broader these trends also enforce a reading of these subjects questions regarding the landscape of Continental as particular in a manner which limits the ability of philosophical theory. However, this more these studies to raise larger implications. expansive focus brings into sharp relief the ways in In Chapter Two, “The Bad Habits of Critical which Ruti’s Lacanian methodology compliments Theory: On the Rigid Rituals of Thought,” Ruti’s cinema studies via a detailed consideration of analysis grows more complex, nuanced and specific, subjectivity as it relates to political philosophy problematizing what she considers progressive and political economy. Referencing Jacques Lacan philosophy, including under this rubric the works alongside Lee Edelman and Lauren Berlant, Ruti of Slavoj Zizek, Jacques Lacan, Alain Badiou and produces a confluence of thinkers which might at others. However, Distillations posits that many of first seem strange, as Lacanian theory is routinely these philosophers, and here the author emphasizes held in tension with queer theory, especially but among others Lacan and Todd McGowan, allow not exclusively due to its binary reinscription of for a reimagining of intersubjectivity which in turn the subject. Distillations considers the nature of has interesting implications for empiricism. As desire and how this subject relates to an affective many of these scholars have been linked closely to relationality which comes from a drive to follow philosophies of film and its industrial context, this preordained social scripts. This chapter goes on section is of interest to those who might otherwise to the hierarchization of drives and priorities: in be tempted to reject universalist logics in favor of an this discussion, Ruti references her earlier work empirical consideration of the cinematic object. Ruti in The Ethics of Opting Out where she revisits the makes the case for a negotiation between the universal progressive critique of neoliberalism. The section and particular. She writes, “I concur that critical concludes by exploring approaches to Lacan’s theory should not necessarily be expected to reflect formulation of “The Thing” and the affective the concerns of real life, that it should be allowed to realities surrounding this abstraction of the object work, ‘to one side of direct referents’” (51-53). With as it relates to the Levinasian Other.2 this remark, the book sides with modern Platonists In Chapter Four, Ruti offers a more detailed like Baidou (a major interlocuter in this discussion), reading of the ethics of Lacanian thought versus rather than with those more empirically situated. more abstracted but ideologically oriented political However, she also cautions against endorsing a mode theory. Here, the argument circles back around of philosophy which ignores real-world contingency to material which has more direct relevance to to the point of endorsing “empty rhetoric about film studies. Expanding on the previous chapter, visions that are entirely unlivable” (53). This chapter Ruti goes into a more in-depth exploration of the continues with an interrogation of the figurative death affects that constitute the contemporary subject, of the ideal subject, as well as an exploration of anti- focusing on anxiety. This anxiety is linked to normativity, and then augments her larger disciplinary the consumption of commodities and desire for conversation to offer a more specific examination of commodities, bringing a hint of the neo-Marxist the query: why do posthumanist philosophers call for to an otherwise primarily Lacanian understanding the death of the subject? These questions find echoes of selfhood. The question of resignation also is in queries about the “death of cinema,” as both pose interesting in this chapter, and forms a focus of the whether a past formulation (“cinema” or Western later section which shifts to a deeper consideration humanist “subjectivity”) is ultimately outmoded and of the question of love as a formulating affect. retrograde, or if such historical considerations can be Distinguishing the sense of rupture from the CONTAGION 67 BOOK REVIEW: DISTILLATIONS rejection of desire is an important critical move, which elements and some distinct ones. This duration echoes shows how many of the tensions introduced earlier and connects to themes of cinematic temporality, on are exemplified in institutions such as Homeland as does the delayed gratification approach Ruti Security. Finally, the chapter negotiates the tension describes as centering the design of the event. In her between “good” and “bad” feelings, a juxtaposition final claim, Ruti implies that trauma is the event that which continues into the next section. few people “want,” but most are likely to experience Chapter Five furthers the work begun in (228). While not summarizing what has come before Chapter Four, but takes a more individually oriented in full, this book ends with an interrogation and and affect-based turn. The focus on the event, which invitation to further contemplation—what might the emerges relatively late in this relatively long chapter, universality of trauma as an affective state (while also makes explicit the relevance to film studies otherwise preserving the particularity of particular traumatic implicit throughout this portion of the book. Chapter events) imply for a reconsideration of subjectivity? Five is centered around love, returning to Classical, Ruti suggests that navigating and engaging with Platonism and moving forward through later lines trauma is a powerful way forward when placing good of inquiry to examine structures of feeling around and bad affect alongside universality. positive affect – for example, different forms ofamor By not arguing for particularity, Ruti’s position (both romantic and otherwise). She critiques the view might be understood to be