Abstract
[Excerpt] In this article I examine the valences of Sedgwick's political orientation through a lens I term idle activism. Ambivalence usefully highlights a mode of being defined by simultaneous inconsistency and indecision. Idle activism, by contrast, underscores the energy of sheer contradiction, defying the apathy that is synonymous with ambivalence. Lauren Berlant makes a strong case for reframing our understanding of ambivalence, observing that "[w]hen we usually think about ambivalence, it's tilted negatively, as an alienation toward," and instead urges us "to return ambivalence to its dynamic etymology, as being strongly mixed, drawn in many directions, positively and negatively charged" (27). This definition usefully alludes to an undercurrent of activity within ambivalence, but we can build on this understanding by paying attention to how these energies take shape at the site of these multi-directional—as well as multi-affective—contradictions...