Dr. Francisca Lai

    This graduate seminar examines how anthropologists considered questions of emotion and social change. By emphasizing the “intimate,” this seminar investigates topics related to care, gender and sexuality, home and diaspora, sense of belonging, and closeness between animals and humans. Apart from examining how emotions are structured and produced in the service of economics, politics, and knowledge, the course also investigates the agency of individuals in expressing their emotions and actions which lead to social transformation. The seminar includes ethnographic works of Austronesian societies, Southeast Asia and East Asia, as well as ethnography on emotional transnationalism.