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CS92PROD
Sociology of Emotions

SOC 238
Fall 2015
Section: 01  
Course Cluster: Queer Studies

This course is the critical study of the role of emotions in social life, spanning both the macro- and mirco-level. We begin with theories of the social nature of emotions from the symbolic interactionist to the social psychoanalytic to the bio-affective. After critically examining Western assumptions about emotions as private property, emotions as entirely an individual expression, we move on to examine "emotion norms" in studies of grief and compassion, and then studies of "emotional labor" and capitalism's role in habituating emotions in everyday life. In the second half of the class, the role of emotions and affect in the issue of social inequality is theorized, as we study the emotional roles of colonizer and colonized, oppressor and oppressed through race, class, and gender inequality. The course ends with an examination of theories of collective memory and traumatic experience, focusing on accounts of ethnicity and diaspora. Throughout, the course will examine how new approaches to studying emotion, and possibly, emotions themselves, both support and challenge traditional sociological methodologies.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS SOC
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: SOC151
Fulfills a Requirement for: (SOC)
Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50%

Last Updated on DEC-11-2024
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