Feeling Some Type of Way: The Politics of Emotion
Tues/Thurs 12-1:15pm
Feelings are political. Whether you’re talking about pandemic-induced anxiety and burnout, rage about the Navy’s poisoning of our water, loneliness from two years of Zoom school, or strategies of self-care, what might seem like just one’s own, individual emotions are actually steeped in and shaped by a larger social and political context. This class will consider the politics of feeling, with particular attention to the ways that feelings are raced and gendered—from white guilt to feminist killjoys. We will dive in to the history of contemporary studies of feeling—called “affect theory”—and consider the ways that thinking about feeling opens up new ways of thinking about race, gender, sexuality, and power. We will read canonical works of affect theory, alongside contemporary texts in various forms and media, including performance art, music, film, poetry, lyric essay, and fiction.
Possible readings/viewings:
Freud, “Mourning & Melancholia”
Lauren Berlant, “The Subject of True Feeling”
Sianne Ngai, “Animatedness” from Ugly Feelings
Sarah Ahmed, from The Promise of Happiness
Sarah Ahmed, “Feminist Killjoys”
Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided
Jasbir Puar, “The Cost of Getting Better” from The Right to Maim
Ann Cvetkovich, from Depression
Eve Sedgwick, “Melanie Klein and the Difference Affect Makes”
Sharon Hayes, “Everything else has failed, don’t you think it’s time for love?”
Claudia Rankine, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
José Muñoz, “Feeling Brown, Feeling Down”
Nao Bustamante, various performance art pieces
Xandra Ibarra, various performance pieces
Jennifer Doyle, Hold it Against Me
Carrie Mae Weems, “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried”
Tuck & Yang, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor”
Claudia Rankine, Citizen
Eve Sedgwick, “Shame and the Cybernetic Fold”
Haunani-Kay Trask, from From a Native Daughter
Heather Love, from Feeling Backward on “Gay Shame”
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
Tao Lin, You are a Little Bit Happier than I Am
Mira Gonzalez, I will Never be Beautiful Enough to Make us Beautiful Together
Xine Yao, from Disaffected
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Diaries
The Combahee River Collective Statement
The Nap Ministry, various social media posts
Various songs by Solange, Willow, Jamila Woods, Noname
Mitch Theriau, “Vibe, Mood Energy”
Assignments:
Students will work towards developing an extended researched, analytical esssay (10-12 pages). To this end, they will submit an essay proposal (2 pages) and an annotated bibliography. They will also submit weekly short writing assignments (approx 1 page per week) in response to the week’s readings.