february: love and envy
a syllabus on desire, shame, and neighborliness
“love your frenemy” by sara protasi
aeon article by a philosophy professor who specializes in emotions. she writes on the tendency to envy our friends and neighbors and the possibilities of emulative envy. if you prefer listening, much of the content is also in “frenemies” from the podcast counterpoint.
“suffering like mel gibson” by zadie smith
a essay on the ubiquitous suffering and envy of others in the time of covid-19. from intimations, a collection written in late spring 2020 about life during the pandemic. (it’s difficult to find a pdf, so the link is a video image of the essay as it’s read aloud)
selections from a lover’s discourse: fragments by roland barthes
six fragments from barthes’ a lover’s discourse that relate to desire and envy in the context of love: “atopos,” “tutti systemati,” “connivance,” “we are our own demons,” “the orange,” and “jealousy.”
envy by joseph epstein
short, broad-strokes book on envy commissioned for a series on the seven deadly sins. collects some writing on envy from philosophy and fiction with added observations, anecdotes, and musings about envy’s social roles.
“envy” by sianne ngai (p. 137)
a chapter of ngai’s book ugly feelings, which explores aversive emotions through literary theory. she describes envy as an emotion that culture has feminized and investigates the impact of this feminization with an analysis of single white female (1992). see also ngai’s “competitiveness from sula to tyra”. (“invidia’s snake” by elisabeth ladenson in the same journal on envy is another pretty good literary essay on proust that has a feminist critique of the epstein book above)
“my enemy” by joanna klink
poem by american poet joanna klink from her collection raptus.
love and saint augustine by hannah arendt
political theorist hannah arendt’s dissertation, where she writes about neighborly love in saint augustine’s confessions. topics include craving and desire; love of self, god, and neighbor; covetousness; and what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself.
