| CODE | ANT2047 | ||||||
| TITLE | Emotions, Culture and Society | ||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Anthropological Sciences | ||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit is designed to provide students with insights into various aspects of the study of emotions across culture and history. The study unit will be composed of two dimensions. It will explore the critique of anthropology and the social sciences more generally from scholars of emotion and the debates they have given rise to. Secondly the unit will focus on select emotions and adopt a cross cultural and historical perspective. The unit will address several crucial questions through these case studies: Are emotions universal? What is the role of emotions in different social structures? What is the relationship between emotions and structures of personhood? These emotions will include: • Guilt and shame • Romantic love • Grief • Anger • Disgust • ‘Moral sentiments’ The students will be encouraged to develop their own research in relation to one of the emotions discussed in class. Study-unit Aims This unit will aim to: • Alert students to current and classical theoretical perspectives and debates in the sociology and anthropology of emotions; • Provide students with an in depth understanding of a select number of emotions in more than psychological or biological terms; • Provide students with an understanding of the interplay between emotions and social difference and power relations. Learning Outcomes 1. Knowledge & Understanding: This unit will: • Offer students an insight into the social and cultural dimensions to emotions; • Enable students to examine the role that emotions play in the phenomenology of the subject; • Provide students with a historical understanding of emotions; • Provide students with an understanding of the critique of anthropology and sociology from scholars of emotions. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: • Read critically and selectively and make sense of a range of case studies in relation to classical and contemporary theory; • Navigate with confidence online journal databases; • Write an essay with a clear structure that makes use of theoretical knowledge; • Develop the ability to plan and develop a research assignment and a collaborative research agenda; • Be able to develop the capacity to work in a team through their presentations in the unit; All of these skills are transferable and will prove invaluable to students in other subjects as well in any future careers they undertake. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings • Lipset, D. (2004) “Modernity without romance?” American Ethnologist. 31(2): 205-224 • Lutz, C. and Abu-Lughod L. (Eds) (1990) Language and the Politics of Emotion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Lutz, C. and White GM (1986) “The Anthropology of Emotions” Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 405-436. • Lutz, C. A. (1988) Unnatural Emotions. Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and their Challenge to Western Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. • Hochschild, A. R. (2003) The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Leavitt, John (1996) Meaning and Feeling in the Anthropology of the Emotions American Ethnologist 23(3): 514-539 • Williams, S. J. (2001) Emotion and Social Theory: Corporeal Reflections on the (Ir)Rational. London: Sage Publications. • Solomon, R. C. (1997) Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, Ed. R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 238-254. • Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1984) “Toward an anthropology of self and feeling.” In Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion. R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine, editors. Pp. 137-157. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. • Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1980) Knowledge and Passion: Illingot Notions of Self and social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Rosaldo, R. (2004) "Grief and a Headhunter's Rage". In. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Philippe I. Bourgois, (Eds) Violence in war and peace. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. • Hollan, D. (1992) Emotion Work and the Value of Emotional Equanimity among the Toraja. Ethnology. 31: 45-75. • Gaffin, D. (1995) The Production of Emotion and Social Control: Taunting, Anger, and the Rukka in the Faroe Islands. Ethos. 23: 149-172. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Seminar | ||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Jean-Paul Baldacchino |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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