In an essay of between 3000 and 5000 words explore a topic or problem you have chosen in consultation with the course tutor or professor. The topic must be consistent with the objectives of Unit 5 set out on the sec-ond page of that unit.So what are those objectives?Unit 5 ObjectivesAfter completing this unit you should be able to critically evaluate:1. how the limbic brain mediates between the internal bodily environment and the external social environment2. Damasios explanation of the relationship between reason and emotion3. how pleasure and pain enter the soul and the significance of this dis-coveryA ROUGH GUIDE TO ASSIGNMENT 3: EMOTIONS BODIES SOCIETIESLets begin with the exact wording of this assignment:In an essay of between 3000 and 5000 words explore a topic or problem you have chosen in consultation with the course tutor or professor. The topic must be consistent with the objectives of Unit 5 set out on the second page of that unit.So what are those objectives?Unit 5 ObjectivesAfter completing this unit you should be able to critically evaluate:1. how the limbic brain mediates between the internal bodily environment and the external social environment2. Damasios explanation of the relationship between reason and emotion3. how pleasure and pain enter the soul and the significance of this dis-coveryLets examine this assignment in the context of the other assignments and the course units. Assignment 1 invites you to provide your own examples of the emotions that form the various clusters of emotions. It is a means of encouraging you to observe emotions in the world around you by drawing on Ben-Zeevs The Subtlety of Emotions. Assignment 2 invites you to choose a brand that interests you and use the course materials to examine the emotional labour and emotional marketing that comprise it.Assignment 3 is in the same vein. You choose a topic or problem that is interesting or relevant to you. Your choice must be consistentwith the objective of Unit 5. It doesnt have to consistent with all of them. They are best regarded as triangulation points. Choose something that falls within that triangle. In this unit especially everything is con-nected to everything else.In consultation with the course tutor or professor.This is important. This isnt a simple yes/no on my part. I can help you fine tune your topic and point you in the right direction. Ive been doing this a long time. Id rather spend time on it up front than spend time try-ing to a fix a wayward essay. So when youve a fair idea of what you want to do in this assignment drop me a line or give me a call and lets talk.A word on interest.Interestindicates a tension between a conjecture (usually within the course materials) and an assumption (always your own). Interest provides the energy to learn about the problem to get things done. [On the importance of interestsee Murray Davis Thats Interesting! Philosophy of the Social Sciences. June 1971 309-344. Try to find time to read at least the first part.] This assignment just like the first two are vehicles for you to develop and explore your interests to make the learning relevant to you. Its been at the core of the tutor model at AU for over 30 years which is how long Ive been doing it. Now it is fashionably known as the emergent curriculum. My job is to help stimulate and guide your interests. Once that is done all I usually have to do is keep out of your way.What sort of topics might fall within the scope of this assignment? Some examples from the old assignment 3:addiction mental illness or domestic violenceexperience of a somatic illness such as cancerthe medicalization of the bodyany of the emotionalillnessesanything under when emotions go wronglearning and teaching emotionsemotions in the young and the oldalternate holistic treatments of the bodyschool shootings violence at workThese are just examples. You have a lot of discretion here. Your choice could be influ-enced by the job you do (nurse teacher police officer prison officer autism consultant) but it doesnt have to be. Sometimes its good to choose a topic that will help us get away from our job. You could explore the emotions of fictional characters in books or movies. Was Hamlet really mad or was he faking it? Or you could decide to write a theoretical paper on Damasio Foucault or similar figures. Or you could develop some ideas you had in the first two assignments.If you get stuck for ideas you could try rummaging through The Business of Emo-tionsblog or my Twitter feed (@drrichardm).This sounds interesting. Some thoughts:1. While its often a good idea to chose a topic you personally identify with we should be clear that this assignment (and the course itself) does not claim to cure anything. Nevertheless pain and pleasure are linked to emotions so theyre a relevant topic.2. Pain is particularly difficult to understand and a lot has been written about it. The standard text is Scarrys The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. I would begin with this.3. Also do a search in some of the journals on pain. There are a lot of them. Here is AU librarys collection.4. Keep in mind what the guide to this assignment says especially the need to relate the assignment to assignment 5. This still allows you much discretion.5. So it is not just pain per se but pain in relation to emotions and the body.6. How does your cultural tradition understand pain? Indigenous peoples often experience pain in a different way to Westerners.7. Regarding holistic medicine there are journals on this and you might find something in one of them that may help you. Here is just one of them.8. Try searching along the lines of pain and emotions in Google Scholar. That should generate some leads.
