This class will be taught via synchronous remote instruction. Time conflicts are not allowed for this class.

Feelings. The most basic human reaction to life’s everchanging moments. We all have them and are all affected by our feelings on a daily basis. Even the slightest switch of an emotion turns the brightest of days into the darkest of nights. While seemingly minor or unimportant as a merely backgrounds or settings for texts, emotions, in fact, can shape the structure, meaning, and end result of a text. Emotions even have the power to transcend a text, impacting not only the narrative, but also the reader-spectator. Throughout the summer, we will examine the role emotions play in literary, visual, and musical contexts. How do emotions inform narrative, plot, drama, and the resolution of a text? What makes a comedy happy or funny? How does one feeling influence another? How do we define tragedy beyond sadness? Do emotions always work one at a time or can multiple emotions exist within a singular moment? Does happiness always mean the absence of sadness? Following the characters outlined in Disney Pixar’s Inside Out (Docter, 2015), we will focus on five key affective turns: Joy/Happiness, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness/Melancholy, to analyze how emotions influence narrative. At the same time, we will question the categories assigned by the Disney film to determine if emotions are more fluid than suggested by the film. How slippery is the slope from happiness to fear or from sadness to disgust and what emotions lie in-between? We will read texts by a wide variety of authors including Ovid, Giovanni Boccaccio, William Shakespeare, Giambattista Basile, Elena Ferrante, and Margaret Atwood to determine how emotions function throughout various genres and media. Do the emotional dynamics differ based on media?

By the end of the summer, we will have a better understanding of the importance of emotions and affect theory as driving forces behind literary works. In this writing-intensive course, you will use your critical reflections on the texts as starting points for developing two long research papers. You will develop your papers through a series of brainstorming assignments, drafts, in-class workshops, peer reviews, and revisions. In addition, you will also complete shorter weekly reading responses and assignments devoted to specific elements of essay writing and research.

Learning Objectives:

Through this course, students will:

– Develop effective reading strategies to help students think actively and critically about a specific text

– Develop analytical writing and research skills that question the text in an advanced way

– Have a clear understanding of how emotions contribute to the overall meaning, plot, and experience of reading a text.

– Question how emotions function singularly, in dialogue with other feelings, or as intentional dichotomies and how emotions further the goals of a text.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Instructor pending appointment.