Emotions in History –
Lost and Found
Ute Frevert, Max
Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany
Coming to terms with emotions and how they influence
human behaviour, seems to be of the utmost importance
to societies that are obsessed with everything “neuro.”
On the other hand, emotions have become an object of
constant individual and social manipulation since “emotional
intelligence” emerged as a buzzword of our times.
Reflecting on this burgeoning interest in human emotions
makes one think of how this interest developed and what
fuelled it. From a historian’s point of view,
it can be traced back to classical antiquity. But it
has undergone shifts and changes which can in turn shed
light on social concepts of the self and its relation
to other human beings (and nature). The volume focuses
on the historicity of emotions and explores the processes
that brought them to the fore of public interest and
debate.
Contents
List of Illustrations Preface
and Acknowledgments The Historical
economy of emotions: Introduction Brussels
, 2010: Emotional politics and the politics of emotion
– The Economy of emotions: How it works and why
it matters – The modern and the pre-modern
Chapter 1. Losing emotions Losing emotions
in trauma – Losing emotions in psychology and
historiography – Losing emotions in the civilising
process – Losing emotions in words: acedia
and melancholia – Losing the mot-force:
honour – Honour as an emotional disposition: internal/external
– Honour practices: The duel – The emotional
power of duelling – Shaming the coward –
Equality and group cohesion – Crimes of honour,
now and then – Chastity and family honour –
Rape, sex, and national honour – The decline of
honour, or its return? Chapter 2. Gendering
emotions Rage and insult – Power
and self-control – Women’s strength, women’s
weakness – Modernity and the natural order –
Emotional topographies of gender – Sensibility
– Romantic families, passionate politics –
Intense emotions versus creative minds – Schools
of emotions: the media – Self-help literature
– More schooling: armies, peer groups, politics
– Collective emotions and charismatic leadership
– New emotional profiles and social change –
Angry young men, angry young women – Winds of
change Chapter 3. Finding emotions
Empathy and compassion – Social emotions in 18th-century
moral philosophy – Self-love and sympathy –
Suffering and pity – Fraternité
and the French Revolution – Human rights –
Abolitionism and the change in sensibility – Sympathy,
lexical – Schopenhauer’s Nächstenliebe
versus Nietzsche’s Fernsten-Liebe –
Compassion and its shortcomings – Counter-forces
and blockades – Suffering, pity and the education
of feelings – Modern dilemmas – Humanitarianism
and its crises Emotions lost and found:
Conclusions and Perspectives
Index
2011
264 pages, 11 black-and-white illustrations
ISBN 978-615-5053-34-4 paperback $24.95 / €21.95
/ £18.99
Fourth volume in the Natalie Zemon Davis Annual
Lecture Series. Other volumes in the series:
Vol.1. Measuring
Time, Making History
Vol.2.
Emotion and Devotion - The Meaning of Mary in
Medieval Religious Cultures
Vol.3.
Friendship and Love, Ethics and Politics - Studies
in Mediaeval and Early Modern History
Vol.5. Divine Presence
in Spain and Western Europe 1500-1960 -
Visions, Religious Images and Photographs
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