Howard Sklar, PhD

Department of Modern Languages (English Philology)

University of Helsinki

Fiction and the Emotions

In recent years, scholars in literary studies and aesthetics have taken a renewed interest in the relation between fiction and the emotions.   This course will address some of the central questions that have been raised, including:

 

             * The representation of the emotions of characters in fiction

             * Readers’ experiences of emotion in response to works of fiction

       * Distinctions and similarities between “real” and “aesthetic” emotions

       * Narrative techniques that elicit emotions in readers

       * Types of emotions that readers experience in response to works of fiction,

                    including empathy, sympathy and fear

       * Empirical approaches to the study of reader emotions

 

We will examine each of these issues, both from a theoretical perspective and in terms of specific works of fiction.

 

Course Requirements:

 

             * Regular attendance

             * Assigned readings

             * One short paper (4-5 pages) on a particular theoretical approach to the

                          aesthetics of emotions in fiction

             * One short paper (4-5 pages) analyzing a fictional text in terms of its emotional

                          Content

             * Active participation in discussions

 

Primary Theoretical Sources (subject to change)

 

             * Selections from Emotion and the Arts (Hjort and Laver, eds., 1997)

             * Selection from Empathy and the Novel (Keen 2007)

             * “Fearing Fictions” (Walton 1978)

             * Selection from Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction (Yanal 1999)

             * Selection(s) from Sympathy and Joyce’s Dubliners: Ethical Probing of Reading,

                          Narrative, and Textuality (Vesala-Varttala 1999)

             * Selection(s) from The Art of Sympathy: Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion

                          in Fiction (Sklar 2008, doctoral dissertation)

             * “Shifting Perspectives: Readers’ Feelings and Literary Response (Miall/Kuiken

                          2001)

 

The fictional works to be used in this course (mainly short fiction, but also excerpts from novels) will be announced during the first session.

Course Description

  

Howard Sklar Homepage

Sklar - Research

Ethics - Course Description

Ethics - Syllabus

Ethics - Extra Readings

Ethics - Papers

Ethics - Lit Texts

Emotions - Course Description

Emotions - Syllabus

Emotions - Papers

Disability Studies and Lit

Sklar - Bio

Sklar - C.V.