AJ24253 Affect Theories: Reading and Emotion

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2015

The course is not taught in Autumn 2015

Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 3 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Dita Hochmanová, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Bonita Rhoads (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 20 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/20, only registered: 0/20
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 9 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives (in Czech)
Over the past couple of decades, the so-called “affective turn” has triggered a new attention in literature studies departments to the world of feeling. Not only pleasure and sympathy but pain, distress, and hatred have become central to the way we understand the act of reading and cultural reception generally. The affective turn has been fuelled by the conception that emotion is crucial to how cultural works are experienced and that emotion itself has a history. “History is what hurts”, as the Marxist cultural historian, Fredric Jameson, informs us. This course aims to be a small discussion group exploring the affective turn that is compelling so many prominent humanities scholars to reconsider the historical relations of literature and emotion. We will focus on a selection of background reading and critical scholarship that are considered key texts in the contemporary practice of ‘Affect Theory'as well as opinion pieces that question and analyze this recent trend.
Literature
  • Political emotions :why love matters for justice. Edited by Martha Craven Nussbaum. 1 online r. ISBN 9780674728288. info
  • scenes of sympathy
  • Sentimental Men: Masculinity and the Politics of Affect in American Culture
  • CVETKOVICH, Ann. Depression : a public feeling. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012, xi, 278. ISBN 9780822352235. info
  • RIVES, Rochelle. Modernist impersonalities : affect, authority and the subject. 1st published. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x, 219. ISBN 9781137021878. info
  • The affect theory reader. Edited by Melissa Gregg - Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010, xi, 402. ISBN 9780822347767. info
  • BERLANT, Lauren Gail. The female complaint : the unfinished business of sentimentality in American culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008, xiv, 353. ISBN 9780822341840. info
  • THRAILKILL, Jane F. Affecting fictions : mind, body, and emotion in American literary realism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007, 312 stran. ISBN 9780674025127. info
  • The affective turn : theorizing the social. Edited by Patricia Ticineto Clough - Jean O'Malley Halley - Michael Hardt. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, xiii, 313. ISBN 9780822339113. info
  • Compassion : the culture and politics of an emotion. Edited by Lauren Gail Berlant. New York: Routledge, 2004, vi, 247. ISBN 0415970520. info
  • NUSSBAUM, Martha Craven. Upheavals of thought : the intelligence of emotions. 1st pbk. ed. New York: Cambridge University, 2003, xiii, 751. ISBN 9780521531825. info
  • JAFFE, Audrey. Scenes of sympathy : identity and representation in Victorian fiction. First published. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, vii, 184. ISBN 0801437121. info
  • MERISH, Lori. Sentimental materialism : gender, commodity culture, and nineteenth-century American literature. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000, ix, 389. ISBN 0822324806. info
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
The course is taught once in two years.
The course is taught: every other week.
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2016.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2015, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2015/AJ24253