Her Socialist Smile. Affective Repertoires of Helen Keller

Abstract

This essay explores affective repertoires around Helen Keller, famous deafblind activist and socialist militant. Departing from the popular image in American culture that portrays her as a miracle or a selfless champion for the “cause of disability rights,” I consider the way in which suffering and opti- mism function as emotional foundations for the “American dream.” Then I focus on the few acts of resistance of a woman who knew that her body was traversed by “public feelings.” Finally, I analyze Her Socialist Smile (2020), a documentary by John Gianvito that conceptually, affectively and sensorially mobilizes Keller’s political ideas where anger, sorrow, and joy are socialist. In a novel way, the haptic visuality of this film establishes a connection between sensation and thought, individual and collective body, to tentatively explore into the deaf-blind sensorium as the possibility of a political affect.