Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (1:20 p.m.) Happiness Group Journal | Page 4

commonalities between love and
hate in brain activity and this
explains why love and hate may
be so closely linked in life.
Our study of Happiness
included Stoic philosophy and the
views of Immanuel Kant on the
judgment of the beautiful and the
sublime. Interestingly, modern
science has revealed that as
people age their physiological
response to an emotional event
lessens but the intensity of a felt
emotion increases.
Our study of Sadness
revealed that animals show
mourning over the loss of one of
their own kind, video games may
be useful in treating depression,
and sometimes communities feel
guilt when a tragedy happens
even though individually a person
may have no control over what
happened.
Lastly, studying Fear led us
through Aristotle’s thoughts on
how what we pity in others is
actually what we fear for
ourselves.
As seen above in the brief
overview of our course content,
our analysis spanned from Plato
and Aristotle all the way to
modern day neuroscience and
biology. The more we read, the
more we learned that it is
practically impossible to try to
define what an emotion is with
mere words. Often art is a better
tool used to express emotion. With
this thought in mind we were also
tasked with finding artistic
examples of each assigned
emotion and sharing these
discoveries with the class. Many
different art forms were analyzed
for both the effect they have on
the intended audience as well as
what the intention of the artist
may have been. These works of
art included poetry, music, visual
art, movies, and even video
games. Lively class discussions
often ensued and were a critical
part of the course.
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