The (Geo)Politics of Affect and Islamophobia in Degrassi: The Next Class
摘要
This chapter examines how Degrassi: The Next Class mobilizes affect to construct, contest, and circumscribe Muslim subjectivities within a transnationally Western youth mediascape. Through close readings of the episodes “#Preach” and “#WorstGiftEver,” I argue that the series stages Muslim characters as affective problems, namely figures whose grief, anger, piety, or hesitation become unthinkable within secular-liberal regimes of feeling. Tracing how two ensemble cast members, Saad and Goldi, are interpellated as affect-aliens, the analysis demonstrates how the show simultaneously gestures towards and forecloses decolonial possibilities, revealing the intimate emotional labour demanded by multiculturalism’s good/bad Muslim dichotomies.