German Literature, Critical Thought, and New Media since 1945 (404-0-1)
Instructors
Anna Maree Parkinson
847/467-5173
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge Hall, Rm 3321, Evanston
Office Hours: By appointment
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-415: Thurs 4:00PM - 6:50PM
Overview of class
What is "affect theory"? What is "the history of emotions"? This course charts seminal theoretical approaches to literary and cultural analysis through the lens of emotion and affect theory. Beginning with post-Freudian psychoanalysis, the class considers how subjectivity and attachment are staged in theory, literature, and film. Is affect merely an expression of contained, individual inner states? How do emotions form and mediate the subject's relationship to the world? How can we read for emotion in aesthetic form? In response to questions such as these, the class will consider together connections between emotion, aesthetics and ethics also by examining the ways in which this relationship is staged in different media from the scene of the "talking cure" to the "transmission of affect" through literature.
Learning Objectives
"* To evaluate and critique influential critical theories of affect and emotion.
* To identify, articulate and assess how theoretical configurations are performed in different medial forms.
* To analyze the relationship between emotions, affect theory, aesthetics, and ethics.
* To formulate an abstract, collate an annotated bibliography, present and discuss initial research findings, and write an independent research paper on a subject of choice."
Teaching Method
Seminar
Evaluation Method
Attendance
Class participation
Paper, final
Presentations
Writing assignments
Class Materials (Required)
Books may include:
• Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2016). ISBN: 978-1784782474.
• J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (New York: Penguin, 2008). ISBN: 978-0140296402.
• Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 2008). ISBN: 978-0802143006.
• Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (Dover Thrift Edition) (New York: Random House, 1991). ISBN: 978-0486266848.
• Hans Keilson, The Death of the Adversary (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010). ISBN: 978-0374139629.
• Adania Shibli, Minor Detail (New Directions, 2020). ISBN: 978-0811229074.
• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, 2003). ISBN: 978-0312422196.
Also, PDFs of select essays will be made available through Canvas