module

Undergraduate Module Descriptor

SOC3142: Emotions, the Body, and the Social

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Overview

Modern social sciences have tended to sideline and devalue emotions. The traditional and problematic emphasis on ‘rationality’ and ‘consciousness’ in the social sciences has led to a heavy cognitive bias which has increasingly come under scrutiny from academics in disciplines from sociology to neuroscience.

This module will introduce you to the study of emotions as social and cultural phenomena. We will engage with theorizations of emotions drawing from a range of disciplines in order to ask ‘what are emotions?’, and to explore the relation between emotions and cognition, the body, and language. These discussions will provide the theoretical foundations to engage with and reflect upon ‘traditional’ social theories as well as to engage analytically with social phenomena. We will look at how sociologists have examined particular emotions or emotional phenomena, such as road rage, as well as employing theoretical discussions to analyse and reconsider sociological accounts of contemporary social phenomena, such as race and power.