Sociology of Emotions

Are feelings innate and universal, or socially created and historically and culturally determined? Generally seen as individually and privately experienced, emotions actually are deeply social. They are embedded in, constitutive of, and created by social interactions, social structures and institutions. This course examines the relatively new field of the sociology of emotions from a constructionist and interactionist perspective. Instruction addresses such issues as definition and labeling of emotions, social and cultural construction of emotion, sociohistorical contextualization of emotion and possible practical uses of a sociological study of emotions. Our explorations focus on contemporary American society, but also include examples from other eras and cultures to illustrate the socially constructed, experienced and expressed nature of emotions. Transferable for UC credit.