The Emotional States of America: A History of Politics and Societal Feeling in the U.S. 1954-2025 (HI3O1)
Module Convenor: Liana Valerio
From the righteous indignation and pride of the Civil Rights Movement to post-9/11 Islamophobia and fear, to the terror and rage of the AIDS crisis and school shootings, and the vindictive isolation of the Manosphere, this module explores how emotions - grief, anger, vengeance, love, nostalgia - have shaped political action, public discourse, and collective identity in the modern U.S. Students will engage with the key theoretical developments in the History of Emotions as a field and apply them to major moments in modern American history. Emotions will not be studied as abstract background noise, and, equally, students will appreciate that they cannot decide how historical actors “must have felt” based on their judgement on how they “should” have felt in any given moment. Rather, emotions will be analysed carefully, in their own right, as central forces in shaping rhetoric, resistance, and social change. The module will prompt students to consider how feelings are politicised, weaponised, and shared, both as tools of power and as modes of protest, and how emotions have led, and will continue to lead to, violence.
Students will consider how political actors have harnessed and deployed emotion in campaigns, crisis response, and public rhetoric, and how individuals and communities have mobilised feeling as a form of resistance and identity-making. The module encourages students to think critically about concepts such as emotional communities, emotional refuge, political affect, and the relationship between private subjective feeling and public discourse. Through close engagement with a range of sources - from speeches and journalism to protest materials, memoir, and cultural texts - students will develop the tools to interpret emotion both as an individual experience and as a historically contingent force. The aim is not only to historicise emotion, but to consider its enduring power in shaping political outcomes and public life. Students will be able to consider how the same emotion serves different groups or purposes in different moments, both for positive and negative ends, as well as helping to add dimension to our understanding of the subjective experience of the modern U.S.
Final Year 15-CAT History Module.
Indicative Syllabus (subject to change)
Week 1 – Theoretical Introduction to Researching Emotions
Week 2 – Civil Rights | “Revolutionary Love”, Pride and Anger
Week 3 – Indigenous Experience: Grief, Resilience, Survivance
Week 4 – Emotion and Epidemics, AIDS & COVID-19 | Love, Distrust, Fury, Loneliness
Week 5 – The Emotional Impact of 9/11 | Paranoia, Vengeance, Islamophobia
Week 6 – Reading Week
Week 7 – Defiant Joy in Ballroom & Music: Euphoria, Pride, Happiness
Week 8 – Mass Shootings | “Thoughts and Prayers”, Grief, Outrage
Week 9 – Me Too & The Manosphere | Trauma, Resentment, Vindication
Week 10 – Populism & Affective Polarisation | Hope, Despair, Nostalgia, Fear, Relief, Suspicion… What Next?
Assessment
Collaborative Public-Facing Educational Output on the Theme of Emotions in the U.S. 80%
Students collaborate in small groups to produce a public history project - focussed on public engagement - on a theme of their choosing. The submission will be the output (e.g. podcast or documentary) + a rationale essay + overview of collaboration process.
Seminar Participation 20%
Students will be assessed based on seminar participation aided by a submitted self-evaluation of performance.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the History of Emotions and its relevance to modern U.S. History.
- Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources relating to emotions in U.S. History and politics 1950 – present.
- Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments.
- Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to the History of Emotions.
- Take responsibility to identify, design, and produce a coherent project on the applied methodologies of History of Emotions in the context of the modern U.S.