All the Feels: Affect Theory and Cultural Studies
WRCT 302
Fall 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENGL 308, FGSS 314 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Queer Studies |
Butterflies in your chest. Perspiration on your upper lip. A racing heart. Every day we witness and manage sensorial experiences; quite often these negotiations illuminate the ways in which powerful norms and institutions shape our daily lives. This course explores the relationship between the seemingly individualized experience of feeling and the social world of power by introducing students to the vibrant field of affect studies. A recent "turn" in critical theory, affect theory is interested in embodiment, the senses, and sensorial experience, questioning the dominance of rationality and cognition by exploring the role emotions and feelings play in our social worlds. This course will focus predominantly on affect theory as it emerged from queer, feminist, and racialized minoritarian discourses in order to ultimately contemplate the ways theories of affect, feeling, sensation, embodiment, and emotion open up literary and cultural texts. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA WRCT |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
- Course materials will include readings by Sara Ahmed, Lauren Berlant, La Marr Jurrelle Bruce, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Audre Lorde, Ann Cvetkovich, Arlie Hochschild, Claudia Garcia-Rojas, José Muñoz, Anne Anlin Cheng as well as Claudia Rankine¿s Citizen, Inside Out, The Farewell, Moonlight, and Beyoncé¿s Lemonade.
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Examinations and Assignments:
- Assignments include participation, weekly readings and written reflections, midterm assignment, final project, and discussion leader project |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Silber,Lauren Times: ..T.R.. 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 16 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: 16 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 6 | JR non-major: 5 | SO: 3 | FR: 2 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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