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ENG32520

Academic Year 2026/2027

Ugly Feelings (ENG32520)

Subject:
English
College:
Arts & Humanities
School:
English, Drama & Film
Level:
3 (Degree)
Credits:
5
Module Coordinator:
Dr Katherine Fama
Trimester:
Autumn
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

Recent years have underscored a range of intense human emotions—daily joys and frustrations, fear, mourning, anger. We have only to look at the daily paper to see the ways in which familiar feelings are deployed to give meaning to local and world events.
This course will examine the changing cultural representations of emotion across a range of genres in poetry, fiction, and drama. We will consume broadly, analysing Victorian, modern, and contemporary texts for representations of individual emotions, shared public affects, bodily registers. In particular, we will investigate the forms, operations, and potentials of what we might call “ugly” feelings.
We will consider what it means to represent or create feeling through text. How are emotions historically situated and embodied? How do allowed and restrained emotions reveal or enforce patterns of power? Each week will focus on a cultural text and its portrayal of a central feeling: anger, grief, boredom, resentment, fear, disgust, envy, horror.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

1. Establish key theoretical and historical contexts for the study of emotions & affects.
2. Apply these concepts and contexts in close analysis of course texts.
3. Consider emotion in the particular context of power, as revealed through critical theories of sexuality, race, gender, age, and the body.
4. Complete short exercises, discussions, and a final exam demonstrating proficiency in critical concepts in the study of emotions and textual analysis.
5. Hone presentation and creative thinking via individual and group work in class.

Indicative Module Content:

Each week will focus on a cultural text (a poem, novel, short fiction, or play) and its portrayal of a central feeling: anger, grief, boredom, resentment, fear, disgust, envy.

Secondary readings provide key terms in the History of Emotions (emotives, emotional communities, affect, practice, emotional regimes and refuges) and explain relations of emotional expression and regulation. The course understands emotions as culturally and historically situated, evolving, and embodied. Explorations of emotion will be situated in terms of class, gender, culture, race, age, sexuality and religion.

This course is team taught and readings will shift each semester. Readings may include:
ME Braddon, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Harriet Jacobs, James Baldwin, Edna O’Brien, Orhan Pamuk, Sally Rooney, Karin Fossum, Kamila Shamsie, Karin Fossum, Meridel LeSeuer & Carmen Maria Machado, Raven Leilani, Soula Emmanuel, and readings in 19th century poetics and trans poetics.

History of Emotions: Sianne Ngai, Sara Ahmed, William Reddy, Rob Boddice, Martha Nussbaum

The United Nations identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UCD contributes in general to SDG 4 Quality Education. Further SDGs explored within this module if relevant are listed below. A scale of 1 - 5 indicates the extent to which the SDG is covered.


 

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Specified Learning Activities

40
Autonomous Student Learning

50
Lectures

10
Seminar (or Webinar)

10
Total

110

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
The module will proceed with a series of short lectures, shared discussions, and short exercises in close reading and writing.
*A final exam in the RDS will test textual analysis and concepts covered.

The module will be delivered in person.
As always, there's always a chance that a limited amount of material may be recorded in the event of faculty illness.

**AI is not permitted in this module
**Grading in the module is moderated and reviewed by an extern.

*For postgrad students wishing to take this module, you are welcome. Assignments have been modified for you to include longer discussion posts, a precis of a longer text, and an extended final essay on a topic appropriate to your research, structured with one of the course lecturers.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Participation in Learning Activities: Discussion Questions and in-class engagement with same.

*not eligible for additional considerations timing		 Week 5, Week 7 Standard conversion grade scale 40% No
20
 No
Exam (In-person): A final exam will be scheduled by the registrar. End of trimester
Duration:
2 hr(s)
 Standard conversion grade scale 40% No
60
 No
Quizzes/Short Exercises: Short Creative-Critical Exercise. (Week 9 of course, Week 10 of trimester) Week 10 Standard conversion grade scale 40% No
20
 No

As part of UCD's student support, under the Additional Consideration policy, extensions may be available for the following assessments in the module: Assignment (including essay/poster), Portfolio, Reflective Assignment, Report(s), and Individual Project.


Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 

Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring Yes - 2 Hour
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Online automated feedback

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback after three short continuous assessment exercises will be offered across the semester. After exam feedback will be offered once grades are approved by the extern.

As this was module changes readings annually, the full reading list will be finalized in late summer.

However, the indicative reading list includes:

Selections from C19 periodicals, Poems, Fiction (TBD)

Fiction:
Calling Out for You, Karin Fossum
Short Fictions by Meridel LeSeuer & Carmen Maria Machado
Luster, Raven Leilani
Wild Geese, Soula Emmanuel

Drama:
How To Keep an Alien, Sonya Kelly

Poetry:
Rita Wong's ecopoetics (and selections from the 19th century and trans poetics)


Readings in other years have included:
ME Braddon, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Harriet Jacobs, James Baldwin, Edna O’Brien, Orhan Pamuk, Sally Rooney, Karin Fossum, Kamila Shamsie, Harriet Jacobs, Browning, Rossetti, Tennyson.
Television Series: Insecure, You’re the Worst, Great British Bake-off, Transparent
Girl, Edna O'Brien
Film: Selections from Bollywood, theater spaces
History of Emotions: Sianne Ngai, Sara Ahmed, William Reddy, Rob Boddice, Martha Nussbaum

Name Role
Dr Orlaith Darling Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Assoc Professor Sharae Deckard Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Professor Fionnuala Dillane Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Dr Katherine Fama Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Taylor Follett Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Assoc Professor Clare Hayes-Brady Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Professor Jorie Lagerwey Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Assoc Professor Anne Mulhall Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Professor Emilie Pine Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Robin Steve Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Dr Maria Stuart Lecturer / Co-Lecturer

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
Autumn Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Tues 11:00 - 12:50
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