Depression Today, or New Maladies of the Economy

Drawing on recent theories of affect and affectivity, this essay argues that depression is an “affect” that connects the individual and the social. In particular, depression serves as both a response to, and a cause of, economic fears and uncertainties—a “quasi-cause” that opens up negative feelings into political potentials. In examination of two New York Times feature articles from the mid-1970s, the essay suggests that depression and economic crisis have been ineluctably linked in the recent period of neoliberalism.