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How have authors throughout history channeled anxiety into meaningful and imaginative works of art?
The poet WH Auden described the 1940s as “the age of anxiety,” but he could have been describing our own stress-ridden times: anxiety is today the most common class of contemporary mental health condition. This course pursues two guiding questions: how has anxiety changed throughout history and how has it stayed the same? And how have authors throughout history productively channeled anxiety into creating beautiful and meaningful works of art? Through a combination of readings and fieldwork, we’ll investigate anxiety’s potential causes, from the universal fear of death to the more historical contexts of urbanization and self-optimization, for instance, as well as its various treatments, such as stoicism, self-help, and psychopharmacology. The course combines practical and theoretical perspectives to examine the relation between anxiety and creativity and to engage with various aesthetic responses—from comedy to literature and film—to the troubles of being that anxiety designates. Smaller weekly assignments will include slow reading, technological unplugging, and proposing one improvement to the mental health culture on campus. Final project may be scholarly, creative, or a hybrid of both. Students will emerge from class readings and discussions with an understanding of anxiety as a social formation, literary preoccupation, and, when harnessed, a spur to aesthetic invention and political intervention.