Emotional Lexicons : Continuity and Change in the Vocabulary of Feeling 1700-2000
(Produkt nebyl zatím hodnocen)
Vydavatel: | Oxford University Press |
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Publikováno: | 2014 |
Formát: | hardback 304 stran |
Anotace
Emotions are as old as humankind. But what do we know about them
and what importance do we assign to them? Emotional Lexicons is the
first cultural history of terms of emotion found in German, French,
and English language encyclopaedias since the late seventeenth
century. Insofar as these reference works formulated normative
concepts, they documented shifts in the way the educated middle
classes were taught to conceptualise emotion by a literary medium
targeted specifically to them. As well as providing a record of
changing language use (and the surrounding debates), many
encyclopaedia articles went further than simply providing basic
knowledge; they also presented a moral vision to their readers and
guidelines for behaviour. Implicitly or explicitly, they
participated in fundamental discussions on human nature: Are
emotions in the mind or in the body? Can we "read" another person's
feelings in their face? Do animals have feelings? Are men less
emotional than women? Are there differences between the emotions of
children and adults? Can emotions be "civilised"? Can they make us
sick? Do groups feel together? Do our emotions connect us with
others or create distance?The answers to these questions are
historically contingent, showing that emotional knowledge was and
still is closely linked to the social, cultural, and political
structures of modern societies. Emotional Lexicons analyses
European discourses in science, as well as in broader society,
about affects, passions, sentiments, and emotions. It does not
presume to refine our understanding of what emotions actually are,
but rather to present the spectrum of knowledge about emotion
embodied in concepts whose meanings shift through time, in order to
enrich our own concept of emotion and to lend nuances to the
interdisciplinary conversation about them.
Kategorie
Knihovnické kódy
- EAN: 9780199655731