Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: College Courses

Meeting: 6:00PM - 6:50PM T (11-JAN-2027 - 23-APR-2027) 

Part of Term: Full Term - No WL Purge

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Method of Instruction: Face to Face

Credit Hours: 1

 

Section Max Enrollment: 19

Section Enrolled: 0

Waitlisted: 0 (Max 99) 

Current members of the waitlist have priority for available seats.

Enrollment data as of: 2-NOV-2026 12:18PM

 

 

Final Exam: No Final Exam

 

Description: Hello Kitty has no visible mouth, yet people around the world have spent more than fifty years interpreting her as happy, sad, comforting, nostalgic, feminine, rebellious, fashionable, and everything in between. How does a character who says almost nothing communicate so much? This course uses Hello Kitty as a starting point for exploring how emotions are communicated, interpreted, and shaped by social life. Drawing primarily from the sociology of emotions while incorporating ideas about gender, culture, consumerism, identity, character design, and nonverbal communication, students will examine how emotional meaning can exist even in the absence of explicit facial expressions or speech. Throughout the semester, we will ask questions such as: Who decides what a character is feeling? Does Hello Kitty's lack of a mouth make her emotionally neutral, or does it allow audiences to project their own emotions onto her? Why is "cuteness" associated with particular emotions, genders, and cultures? And what can Hello Kitty teach us about the way humans communicate emotion in everyday life? Students will apply course concepts not only to Hello Kitty, but also to other largely nonverbal characters and cultural objects. The course culminates in a final presentation in which students select another mute or largely nonverbal character and analyze how that character communicates emotion.