Loss, Political Activism and Public Feelings: Between Fact and Affect

Catalog description

Why do political actors deploy quantitative approaches when dealing with catastrophe, while personal experiences of grief draw heavily on affective resources? Juxtaposing texts from public health, public policy, empirical political science, and law, alongside cultural and artistic responses that focus on public feelings of mourning, rage, and defiance, this co-taught course examines political action between fact and affect. Case studies will include the long afterlife of transatlantic slavery, anti-lynching campaigns, the enshrining of the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement in national memory, and political movements such as ACT UP and the Movement for Black Lives.