Sociology of Emotions Course No. xxxxxxx Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 Course Convenor: Dr. Mary Holmes Starting 1 August, current email mary.holmes@flinders.edu.au Owning programme: MA Global Social Change Semester 1 course Level-11 course This is a postgraduate version of an existing undergraduate Honours option in Sociology. This course is distinguished from the UG version in three respects. First, the learning outcomes and extra readings demand greater sophistication and analytical skills; second, there are additional bi-weekly PG seminars; and third, the assessment is conceived and evaluated at a level appropriate to a PG-level course. Course Description Feelings are things we usually think of as natural, but sociologists are interested in to what extent emotions are socially constructed and/or socially constituting. We examine why sociologists have largely neglected emotions and what a sociological approach can bring to our understanding of them. This will enable us to explore how the sociology of emotions can challenge some of sociology s key premises and ways of thinking and to critically analyse debates about the changing role of emotions in social life. The topic examines how modernity has made people feel about each other and their world and how those feelings have in turn shaped that world. Aims and Objectives Students who have taken the course will have an understanding of differing theoretical explanations of emotions, and be able to critically compare the importance and operation of emotions in different social settings. They should be able to analyse how are subject to socail processes, and identify and describe major debates within the study of emotions. Learning Outcomes Graduates will be able to demonstrate: 1. A critical understanding of the principal theories, concepts and principles in the field of the sociology of emotions 2. An ability to apply their knowledge and skills to understanding practical examples of how emotions are expressed in different social and cultural contexts 3. That they can critically review and evaluate different sociological approaches to emotions, and offer some original insight into the debates 4. An ability to clearly communicate, orally and in written form, their ideas relating to the sociology of emotions 5. Team-work skills in organizing and leading tutorial discussion with a group of peers Course Delivery The course involves one two-hour session every week. The first hour may be a lecture, whereas the second hour may be discussion or presentations and group work, or there may be two hours of lecture/discussion format. Students are expected to do the assigned readings in advance and arrive fully prepared to participate. Students are required to do key readings, and are strongly encouraged to read beyond these. In addition, PG seminars will be delivered every other week beginning Week 2. Students should note lecture attendance, participation in presentations and group
work/discussion is compulsory and attendance will be noted. (Staff profiles and contact details can be accessed via staff pages: http://www.sociology.ed.ac.uk/staff_profiles/staff_listing) Assessment All students will be assessed through the writing of an essay (word-limit 4000 words), to be agreed with the Convenor. The PG sessions will be student-led (with the convenor present) and this will factor in the final course assessment. Syllabus Week 1. How do you feel? Defining emotions 2. Feeling modernity. Marx, Weber and Durkheim on emotions 3. How to blow your nose: Civilising emotions? 4. Why do people cry at weddings? 5. Are women more emotional? Engendering emotions 6. Feeling tarty: Distaste and the reproduction of class 7. Wretchedness, anger and happiness: Resisting racism 8. Passionate politics: Social movements, mainstream politics and emotions 9. (Dis)abling emotions: Feeling different 10. Global emotions: Melancholic migrants, disappointed dreams and excitement 11. Revision Indicative Readings General background reading is below and there will be essential and further reading for each week, an indicative list follows. All essential reading is available in electronic form via the library. Some general reading Barbalet, J. (ed) (2002) Emotions and Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell. Barbalet, J. (2001) Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure : A Macrosociological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bendelow, G. and Williams, S. J. (eds) (1998) Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues. London: Routledge. Elias, N (2000) The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hochschild, A.R. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lupton, D. (1998) The Emotional Self: A sociocultural exploration. London: Sage Turner, J.H. and Stets, J.E. (2005) The Sociology of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Turner, J.H. and Stets, J.E. (eds) (2006) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions. New York: Springer. Wouters, C. (2007) Informalization: Manners and emotions since 1890, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Week 1: How do you feel? Defining emotions Kemper, T. D. (1981) Social Constructionist and Positivist Approaches to the Sociology of Emotions American Journal of Sociology 87(2): 336-362. Hochschild, A. (1983) Comment on Kemper's "Social Constructionist and Positivist Approaches to the Sociology of Emotions" American Journal of Sociology 89(2): 432-434. Barbalet, J. (2001) Emotion in social life and social theory in Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure : A Macrosociological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burkitt, I. (1997) Social Relationships and Emotions, Sociology 31(1): 37-55. Burkitt, I. (2012) Emotional Reflexivity: Feeling, Emotion and Imagination in Reflexive Dialogues Sociology 46(3): 458-72. Damasio, A. (1995) Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. London: Picador. Hochschild, A (1998) The sociology of emotion as a way of seeing in Bendelow, G. and Williams, S. (eds) Emotions in Social Life: Critical themes and contemporary issues. London: Routledge. Turner, J.H. and Stets. J.E. (2005) Conceptualizing Emotions Sociologically in The Sociology of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Week 2: Feeling modernity. Marx, Weber and Durkheim on emotions Engels, F (1845/1969) Results The Condition of the Working Class in England. London: Panther. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-workingclass/
Durkheim, E (1897/2002) The social element of suicide Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge. Other editions also fine. Martineau, H (1837) Apathy in Citizenship in Society in America London: Saunders and Otley. Available as a free ebook via google. Marx, K (1844/1959) Estranged Labour Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/prefa ce.htm Simmel, G (1908/1950) The Metropolis and Mental Life adapted by D. Weinstein from Kurt Wolff (Trans.) The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press, 1950, pp.409-424. See also http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sa mple_chapter/0631225137/bridge.pdf Sydie, R. A. (1987) Natural Women, Cultured Men: A Feminist Perspective on Sociological Theory. Milton Keynes : Open University Press. Weber, M (1915/1967) Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions: The Erotic Sphere pp 343-50 in H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (eds) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Week 3: How to blow your nose: Civilising emotions? Elias, N (2000/1939) On Blowing One s Nose pp121-9 in The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Elias, N (1978-82) The social constraint towards self-constraint in The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Elias, N. (1987) Involvement and Detachment. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Foucault, M (1976) The repressive hypothesis in The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction. Any edition is fine. Mennell, S (1991) On the Civilizing of Appetite in Featherstone, M, Hepworth, M and Turner, B (eds) The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory. London: Sage. Williams, S. and Bendelow, G. (1998) The emotionally expressive body in The Lived Body: Sociological Themes, Embodied Issues. London: Routledge. pp136-144. Wouters, C. (2007) Informalization: Manners and emotions since 1890, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Week 4: Why do people cry at weddings? Hochschild, A (1983) Feeling rules in The Managed Heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fields et al. (2006) Symbolic Interactionism, Inequality and Emotions Turner, J.H. and Stets, J.E. (eds) (2006) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions. New York: Springer. Goffman, E (1963) Behavior in public places: notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Turner, J.H. and Stets. J.E. (2005) Conceptualizing Emotions Sociologically in The Sociology of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wouters, C (1989) The Sociology of Emotions and Flight Attendants: Hochschild s Managed Heart,Theory, Culture & Society 6(1): 95-123 Week 5: Are women more emotional? Engendering emotions Shields et al(2006) Gender and Emotion in Turner, J.H. and Stets, J.E. (eds) (2006) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions. New York: Springer.Ebook. Duncombe, J. and Marsden, D. (1993) Love and Intimacy: The Gender Division of Emotion and Emotion Work, A Neglected Aspect of Sociological Discussion of Heterosexual Relationships Sociology 27 (2): 221-241. Duncombe, J. and Marsden, D. (1995) Workaholics and Whingeing Women : Theorising Intimacy and Emotion Work the Last Frontier of Gender Inequality? Sociological Review 43(1): 150-69. Hochschild, A.R. (1983) Gender, Status and Feeling in The Managed Heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jaggar, A. M. (1989). Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology Inquiry 32(2): 151-176. Jackson, S. (1993) Even Sociologists Fall in Love: An exploration in the sociology of emotion Sociology 27(2): 201-220. Lupton, D (1998) The Emotional Woman and the Unemotional Man in The Emotional Self. London: Sage. Monaghan, L. and Robertson, S. (2012) Embodied Heterosexual Masculinities, Part 1: Confluent Intimacies, Emotions and Health Sociology Compass 6(2): 134-150. Week 6: Feeling tarty: Distaste and the reproduction of class Skeggs, B. (2009) The moral economy of person production: the class relations of self-performance on reality television Sociological Review 57(4): 626-644.
Barbalet, J. (2001) Class and resentment in Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure: A Macrosociological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Storr, M (2002) Classy Lingerie Feminist Review 71(1): 18-36. Reay, D. (2005) Gendering Bourdieu's concepts of capitals? Emotional capital, women and social class Sociological Review 52, Issue supplement s2: 57-75. Skeggs, B (1997)Formations of class and gender: becoming respectable. London: Sage. Week 7: Wretchedness, anger and happiness: Resisting racism Lorde, A. (1981) The uses of anger Women s Studies Quarterly 25(1/2): 278-85. Ahmed, S. (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge. Ahmed, S. (2010) The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Brown, W. (1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. Fanon, F. (1965) The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin. Any edition. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1910) The Genealogy of Morals. H.B. Samuel trans. O. Levy (ed.). The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Vol. 13. Edinburgh: T.N. Foulis. Young, I. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Week 8: Passionate politics: Social movements, mainstream politics and emotions Wettergren, Å. (2009) Fun and laughter: culture jamming and the emotional regime of late capitalism Social Movement Studies 8(1): 1-15. Flam, H. (2004) Anger in Repressive Regimes: A Footnote to Domination and the Arts of Resistance by James Scott European Journal of Social Theory 7(2): 171-188. Goodwin, J., Jasper, J. and Polletta, F. (eds) (2001) Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Groves, J M (1995) Learning to feel: the neglected sociology of social movements Sociological Review 43(3): 435-61. Hay, C. (2007) Why We Hate Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jasper, J. (1998) The emotions of protest: Affective and reactive emotions in and around social movements Sociological Forum 13(3) Ost, D. (2004) Politics as the Mobilization of Anger: Emotions in Movements and in Power European Journal of Social Theory 7(2): 229-244. Week 9: (Dis)abling emotions: Feeling different Reeve, D. (2002) Negotiating psycho-emotional dimensions of disability and their influence on identity constructions Disability & Society17(5):493-508. Bendelow, G. (1993) Pain perceptions, emotions and gender Sociology of Health & Illness 15(3): 273 294, Goffman, E (1968) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hughes, B. (2009) Wounded/monstrous/abject: a critique of the disabled body in the sociological imaginary Disability & Society 24(4): 399-410. Sunderland, N., Catalano, T. and Kendall, E. (2009) Missing dicourses: concepts of joy and happinesss in disability Disability & Society 24(6): 703-14. Week 10: Global emotions: Melancholic migrants, disappointed dreams & excitement Svašeka, M. and Skrbiš, Z. (2007) Passions and powers: emotions and globalisation Identities 14(4): 367-83. Ahmed, S. (2010) Melancholic migrants The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hochschild, A. R. (2003). Love and Gold in The commercialization of intimate life: Notes from home and work. Berkely, CA.: University of California Press. Hochschild, A.R. and Ehrenreich, B. (Eds) (2003)Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. London: Granta. O Reilly, K. (2007) Intra-European Migration and the Mobility Enclosure Dialectic Sociology 41(2): 277-293.