Feeling What We Teach: Mitigating the Emotional Labor Slide in Affect-Based Instruction

Abstract

One of my major and most cherished responsibilities in my work with rare books, community archives, and other facets of special collections is teaching primary-source-centered classes for undergraduate students. This piece centers the emotional needs of special collections practitioners who serve as instructors with primary sources, especially as we work to support affective learner responses to the historic materials in our care. To ground us in our terms, “affect theory” as defined by Marika Cifor is a relational “force” that supports fully felt reactions to materials, ideas, or experiences. This is prioritized in the context of the tendency to frame intellectual mastery of content as the primary metric for learning.