The Political is Personal: Feelings, Agency, and the Political Self

Content

The Political is Personal: Identity, Emotion, and Lived Politics
This module begins with the idea that the political is also deeply personal. Our political beliefs, loyalties, and actions are closely tied to how we see ourselves and interpret the world. At the same time, our inner lives—our emotions, desires, and identities—are shaped by the cultural narratives and political structures we inhabit.
Our feelings are shaped by politics—and our politics by how we feel. This seminar explores how the boundaries between the personal and political dissolve in the formation of identity, emotion, and agency. Rather than viewing emotion as separate from political life, this course approaches affect as a central mode through which power circulates, and resistance takes form. From grief and shame to hope and solidarity, we explore how emotions are not only personal responses, but deeply political forces shaped by histories, ideologies, and social structures.
Key questions include:

• What does it mean to “feel political”?
• Can lived experience be a form of theory?
• How do emotions operate within systems of power?
• In what ways do storytelling and embodiment create political meaning?
• What role does affect play in protest, populism, and political belonging?

We will engage with theorists such as Judith Butler, bell hooks, Sara Ahmed, Frantz Fanon, and Michel Foucault to examine how political subjectivity is shaped at the intersection of emotion, identity, and power—embedded within broader historical, cultural, and structural forces—and how affect functions both as a tool of political control and a resource for resistance.