The course is dedicated to exploring the politics and aesthetics of love pain; while the focus is on 21st-century configurations, we will also engage with historically shifting representations and interpretations of the miseries of love. We will approach emotions from a decidedly socio-political perspective: Drawing on the work of Eva Illouz, Laura Berlant, Susan Sontag, Sara Ahmed and bell hooks the course seeks to unearth the political, social and economic nature of seemingly intimate emotions. Attention to some of the more hurtful and disappointing aspects of love will allow us to analyze how emotions are invested in the logic of the capitalist market and shaped by culturally available technologies, including digital media technologies. We will also consider how notions of love and the miseries of emotional life intersect with politics of gender, sexuality and heteronormativity in the 21st century and investigate what is at stake in acts of ‘unloving’. The course takes seriously the power of aesthetic artifacts in shaping ideas of love and love pain; accordingly, we will examine the work of cultural media – literature, film, essays and Instapoetry (by William Shakespeare, James Baldwin, Spike Jonze, Maggie Nelson and Yrsa Daley-Ward) – and focus on their investment in affective economies.