A critical synthesis of the work of Lauren Berlant, Moishe Postone, and Michael Silverstein.

The Treadmill Affect draws upon the work of three University of Chicago professors, each a former program director at the Center for Transcultural Studies: literary and cultural critic Lauren Berlant, historian and social theorist Moishe Postone, and linguist Michael Silverstein. Through this intellectual synthesis, Benjamin Lee demonstrates the critical possibilities of uniting a revived linguistic turn with Marxist accounts of affect and subjectivity, adding new dimensions to the "treadmill" affective structure of cruel optimism.

Benjamin Lee is professor of anthropology and philosophy at the New School. He was formerly dean of the New School for Social Research and provost of the New School. He is also the former director of the Center for Transcultural Studies.