AHR Conversation: The Historical Study of Emotions

Nicole Eustace et al., “AHR Conversation: The Historical Study of Emotions,” The American Historical Review 117, no. 5 (December 1, 2012): 1487–1531.

An interesting discussion of how to historicize emotions and incorporate them into historical narratives. The most useful thing is their debate of the change of affective regimes (they have several conceptions they play with, such as 'emotional communities', 'emotional habitus', etc.).

A reference to William Reddy: "Emotional control is the realsite of the exercise of power". A very reasonable approach to history of emotions: "I can never know what William Byrd “really” felt (if indeed he himself did), but I can very usefully look for patterns in emotional expression and regulation that reveal much valuable information about social organization and political control." (1504)

On p. 1505 - a very interesting statement that for the 18th century Europeans, the concept of 'personality' was strange, but the concept of 'disposition' was conventional - in this way, the language expressed a very different relationship between people's selves and emotions. " In fact, the eigh- teenth-century notion of “disposition” corresponds closely to the concept of the sub- ject position as articulated by Linda Alcoff. This concept combines in a single term the creation of self and the distribution of power, making it clear that each is in- extricably linked to the other. ".

At some point, start discuss really interesting things: that emotional change in history does not follow societal or political changes (a functionalist view), but rather accompanies them in a dialectical way (1515-1516).

Speaking of emotions, they at some point mention "the primacy of aesthetics and form" in those spheres of social/cultural life that are shaped/interpellated by affects.