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Ashoka University’s undergraduate course curriculum is taught across three semesters: Spring, Summer and Monsoon (Fall). Courses are broadly divided into three categories – Foundation Courses (core curriculum), Major & Minor Courses and Co-Curricular Courses.
You may search courses offered at Ashoka here. Please use the drop down menu to choose the specific semester and subject to see the full list of courses under each department. Foundation courses are offered in all semesters and do not have prerequisites. Offerings in other categories differ in each semester. Some higher level major/minor courses may have prerequisites.
To view Summer Semester Courses-2024: Click here
Emotions, Expressions and the Ego
(Mind & Behaviour FC) Monsoon 2024
What is an emotion? What, if any, are the distinctions between passions, feelings, affects, sentiments, emotions (called “bhAva”-s in Indian psychology and theater theory) ? Are we always aware of and correct about our own emotions? Can we ever know or feel others’ emotions? Focusing on ten basic emotions: anger, humour, disgust, fear, envy, sadness, love, wonder, fun and boredom this course will explore the following four questions about emotions, their bodily expressions and their relationship to the ego (which need not be equated with) the self:
1. Are emotions primarily a matter of the body, the brain, the nervous system, or the self’s subjective consciousness, or are they constructed out of facial expressions, interpersonal interactions and moral evaluations thereof?
2. How do we learn, fallibly but reliably, to detect (directly perceive? indirectly infer?) others’ feelings from their arguably universal facial expressions?
3. How central is our concept of ego/ self/ or I, the first person, to our feelings of emotion? Could an egoless person still have some ‘good’ emotions (such as compassion, gratitude or respect)?
4.Can emotions be ethically evaluated as ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
Alternative answers to these questions will be explored through selected readings(and short written reactions with prompts) from Charles Darwin, William James, Jesse Prinz, Paul Ekman, Aaron Be’eZev, Robert Solomon, Jonathan Haidt, Lars Svenson and Sanskrit Theater Aesthetics (Nāṭya Śāstra), and Abhinavagupta’s commentary on it. We shall also watch classic and contemporary Indian and international cinema in order to apply some of the philosophical theories of emotion and test them against our reaction to performances of film-acting, theatre and dance.
