PWR 2KSC: Researching the Politics of Pleasure, Love and Joy
In her bestselling book Pleasure Activism (2019), adrienne maree brown challenges readers to “create more room for joy, wholeness, and aliveness (and less room for oppression, repression, self-denial and unnecessary suffering) in your life.” Her work prompts and wrestles with many questions: Do all of us have the same "right" to joy? Do we all deserve pleasure? Who is obtaining this joy and pleasure, and how? How do systems of power inform "pleasure," "joy" and "love?" Does anything shift when people prioritize pleasure and joy in their activism and/or advocacy?
In this class, we will ask all kinds of questions about joy, pleasure, and love. We will engage with writing and the arts to enter into the conversation about what pleasure is, how joy and love function in us and in the systems we live within, and where we might locate resistance. Readings might include excerpts from All About Love by bell hooks, “The Erotic as Power” by Audre Lorde, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown, This is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan; Inciting Joy by Ross Gay, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, and Feminist KillJoy Handbook by Sara Ahmed, among others.
Examples of Research Topics
Students might pursue research projects that engage with brown's "pleasure activism," the politics of sexual pleasure, or the role of "comic pleasure" & comedy in social movements. They could explore the concept of "guilty pleasures" or engage with Sara Ahmed's killjoy feminism. Other potential research areas include the role of joy in digital activism (how social media movements leverage positive emotions); nationalism and the joy of belonging; pleasure disparities in public spaces (urban planning and access to enjoyment across different communities); the politics of self-care (as a radical act, perhaps); joy as resistance in LGBTQ+ movements (exploring how celebration and pleasure challenge heteronormative structures); the decolonization of joy (the role of colonial legacies and resistance to these legacies); the decolonization of love (analyzing how Western concepts of romantic love have been globalized and exploring alternative models from diverse cultural tradition and discourses); love under/within capitalism; narratives of break-ups and the pain of love lost. We will cast a very wide net in terms of what you can research, you will have the freedom to choose any subject that interests you—it’s hard to imagine what does not relate to pleasure, joy and/or love, as the barriers to these things need our attention as well.
As students delve into their chosen topics, they may focus on individuals, communities, institutions, or broader structures that shape what we think we know, and what we feel, when it comes to joy, pleasure, and love. Toni Morrison wrote “we speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” Ultimately we will write our way into understanding and hopefully as storytellers looking closely at joy, pleasure and love, a step towards healing will occur.
Major Assignments
Research Proposal
(5-minunte oral presentation; 900-word written proposal; 250-word reflection) Students will develop both written and oral proposals introducing their research topic and its significance. The proposal should articulate research questions, establish exigency, and outline methodological approaches for examining how their chosen topic contributes to the discourses under study. Students will deliver their proposals as oral presentations with visual support, practicing strategies for engaging academic audiences.
Written Research-Based Argument
(3000-3600 words; 250-word reflection) You will each develop a research-based piece of writing that will examine something “worth examining”: some social, cultural, ethical, theoretical and/or political aspect relating to our subject matter. We can think broadly here. One important thing about the “research writing” in this class is that you will be able to write an academic piece (scholarly), or, a “hybrid” piece—a piece of writing that while “long form,” is appropriate to a more popular-hybridized context (a hybrid academic/pop-intellectual-audience piece, like something for Science Times, The Atlantic, The New York Times).
Live Delivery/Research Presentation
(10 minute live oral presentation with appropriate multimedia support; 250-word reflection) Students will transform their research into engaging multimedia presentations for a public audience. Through rehearsals and workshops, they will develop effective delivery techniques and visual rhetoric strategies to communicate their ideas.
Genre/Mode Assignment
(2-3 page written reflection) Students will reflect on their research, writing and live presentation process. They will analyze the rhetorical choices they made across different genres and contexts, considering how these choices shaped their communications.