Courses - The Politics of Affect: Theories of Emotion and Political Life
POLI 5440 The Politics of Affect: Theories of Emotion and Political Life
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course draws on recent developments in the burgeoning of field of affect studies to address the relation of both conscious and non-conscious emotive experience to public and political life. Drawing on the insights and scholarship from different disciplines, we will examine the social, political and cultural theories of affect, emotion, and aesthetics to explore their role in political decision-making and public responses. Topics will include the affective logic of public threat, the cultural politics of emotion such as fear and shame; sensorial responses to moralistic rhetoric; visceral responses to social groups and/or cultural practices. We will also look at how sensibility, feeling, and affect have operated in social and political movements, including a consideration of emotions such as fear, disgust, and distain, and compassion in social conflict, and in the formative approaches to retribution and reconciliation.
FORMAT: Seminar
PREREQUISITES: Permission of the instructor
CROSS-LISTING:
POLI 4440.03