What makes you feel good or bad, and why? How do you convince other people to do what you want them to? What is happening when you feel disgusted by a situation, or empowered to take action, or blissfully secure, or anxious about the future?

Emotion - feelings - are integral to our everyday life and functioning as human beings - and they are inherently social. We often think of emotions as personal, internal and individual, but as sociologists we should also notice that emotions are produced and given meaning through interactions with other people and with institutions. This module will help students to identify how emotion and feeling appears in social life - both in public and in private - and to analyse how feelings relate to individual action and the functioning of social structures. The module will look at theorisations of particular kinds of emotion in social, political, geographical and historical context, with an emphasis on a feminist sociological approach influenced by cultural studies.

 

The module structure may change slightly year to year, but the topics covered will look something like this:

🔎 Introduction: what is “social” about emotions?

😡 Anger I: hate and destruction

🔥 Anger II: resource and resistance

🕊️ Hope I: possibility and connection

🤞 Hope II: disappointment and postponement

😱 Fear: retreat and shame

💔 Love I: guilt and control

❤️ Love II: care and solidarity

👨‍🎓 Understanding emotion politically and socially

 

In case you want to get an idea of the kind of texts we will read and discuss, check out:

 

Ahmed, Sara (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Berger, J (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin.

hooks, b (2001) Salvation: Black People and Love, New York: William Morrow.

Lorde, A (2007) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Berkeley: Crossing Press.

Nash, J C (2011) "Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality”, Meridians, 11(2):1-24.

Nussbaum, M (2013) Political emotions: why love matters for justice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Skeggs, B (2014) "Values beyond value? Is anything beyond the logic of capital?" British Journal of Sociology, 65(1):1-20.

Sontag, S (2004) Regarding the pain of others, London: Penguin.

The Care Collective (2020) The Care Manifesto: the politics of interdependence. London: Verso.

 

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of sociological theorisations of emotions
• Apply sociological theorisations of emotion and power to empirical examples drawn from political and cultural life
• Communicate understanding of the role of emotions in political processes in a sociologically informed way
• Identify links between personal experiences of feeling and the social context which shapes and is shaped by them

Key Information

This is an optional module.

15 CATS

Summative Assessment: 3000 word essay (100%)

Teaching: 1 x 1 hour lecture and 1 x 1 hour seminar per week.

Module Convenor: Hannah JonesLink opens in a new window