
In the first part of this essay, Michael Doss traces the histories of thing theory and affect studies, which together can be understood as offshoots of a parent trend in the humanities: a demand for renewed methodologies that promise values such as equity, inclusion, decolonization, and political utility. The second part of this essay explores Rachel Kushner’s 2013 novel, The Flamethrowers, specifically its orientation toward the future, conveyed by the way it stages the futility of total self-renewal.