College Seminar (101-7-22)

Topic

E*MO*TION: Literary and Pop Culture

Instructors

Lauren Michele Jackson

Meeting Info

Allison Residential Comm 1021: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Emotions are fickle and difficult to discuss. The challenge of translating a personal feeling into something another person would understand has been a persistent quandary within philosophy and art for centuries. Nevertheless, writers and artists persist in trying. How an artwork makes us feel is often one our first insights into what we think about it, often leading us towards other, more studious observations about its content. This course, taking its cue from the musical monarch of feels, Carly Rae Jepson, focuses on matters of feeling in literature. We will read a diverse selection of short stories, poems, and essays and think about the importance of feelings, moods, and sensation in literature as a means of introduction to humanistic methods of inquiry, interpretation, reason, and argument. How do writers enact scenes of bliss, melancholy, dread, and hilarity. Possible readings include: Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickenson, Nella Larsen, Louise Glück, David Foster Wallace, Claudia Rankine, and Garth Greenwell.

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar