SOCIOLOGY OF EMOTIONS

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This course explores how emotions are shaped by social institutions, political systems, and cultural norms. Moving beyond the idea that feelings are purely private or individual, we examine how schools, workplaces, media, and the state establish “feeling rules” that influence which emotions are considered appropriate, excessive, threatening, or legitimate. We will pay particular attention to how laws, policies, and public discourse shape emotional life by protecting some forms of comfort while constraining or stigmatizing others. Drawing on scholarship in the sociology of emotions, Black feminist theory, and affect studies, students will analyze how emotions such as fear, shame, anger, grief, and joy operate within broader systems of inequality. The course also considers how individuals and communities respond creatively and collectively to emotional regulation through practices of care, solidarity, and resistance. Through analytical writing and applied research, students will develop tools for understanding how power operates not only through institutions and policies, but also through everyday emotional life.