Historically, Western thought has revered ideas of rationality and objectivity, and framed emotion as the domain of women, unworthy of attention. Yet, since the 1970s emotion and affect has increasingly become an area of interest, congruent with the recognition of sex/gender as an object of study itself, and the rise of scholars who are not male, cisgender, and heterosexual. After the second wave, a feminist politics of emotions emerged simultaneously with critical and postcolonial analyses that centred affective experiences of colonialism, slavery and black embodiment. Drawing from both these lineages, queer theorists largely combine feminist, critical race, and anti-colonial concerns to account for how feelings shape contemporary culture and politics. Although there is no consensus on how to define or examine affective experience, these various scholars share an interest in how power circulates through feeling, shaping how we know and experience the world. This interdisciplinary seminar traces an overview of the scholarship on affect and emotions, to explore how feelings shape identities, collectives, and inequities, gendered, raced, classed and otherwise. From white nationalist movements’ love of the self and fear of other (threatening the body of white women and thus the white nation), to gender wars around whose safety is at stake in the street and in the bathroom, feelings are the animating forces of our politics, and clearly have material consequences. By including theoretical approaches to understanding emotion and affect, as well as empirical studies, we will explore both what affect is, and what affect does: Are emotions and affects discrete categories of feeling? How can feeling be a meaningful category to analyse the social, and what are its material effects for feminine, queer and racialised peoples? How can feelings be embodied, subjective and collective? How do feelings animate differences, and mobilise social movements? This seminar is student-led and participatory. That means that students take the lead in framing issues and discussions. Students are encouraged to draw from prescribed texts, their own literature sources, their own experiences as well as current events, popular culture, and social media. Leading and participating in discussions is an important aspect of this seminar and will help you get the best out of the course.
- Course owner: Talia Meer