A History of Emotions: that conversational thing

Tuesday 18 August 2009

that conversational thing

is on tonight and i'm rather nervous. all these half baked ideas i trot out here may be held to serious scrutiny...

4 comments:

Michelle said...: Success! Everyone - Calum was superb, as was to be expected. I think a few people were still clinging to the idea that their emotions are instinctive, but the rest mapped out their 'emotion scripts' and recognised the 'felt judgement' that was behind their responses in different contexts.; 20 August 2009 at 11:36
scot in exile said...: too kind... though i should have plugged my blog more!; 20 August 2009 at 14:07
Michelle said...: I just wrote and emailed a review, and didn't think to put your blog address on it :-( But I added it to the homepage of the Facebook group, and it's linked to my website as well.; 21 August 2009 at 10:44
scot in exile said...: cheers m'dear!; 21 August 2009 at 10:47

Blogging on the History of Emotions - an introduction

I started this blog back in about October 2008 to record and develop some thoughts on a subject that had become increasingly fascinating to me.

The History of Emotions is a growing field that spans several academic disciplines, notably history, anthropology and cognitive psychology. However, I think it's something that can be enormously interesting to the rest of us...

What is it? In essence, I guess it's the study of how we may have felt and acted emotionally in different societies across times and place.

For example, it is said that romantic love began around the 12th Century AD in southern France, when the troubadours created stories of unrequited love, sowing the seed for a flower that still blooms today. And yet it was not always so, time was when love did not have the form it does now.

This to me is a source of wonder. As a thousand other examples come forward, some in subtle forms, others as alien as something from another world, so we can be astonished by ourselves. All however are human and offer us food for thought on how to live on this planet.

Not being an academic but a journalist by trade, it's immediately obvious that what I write is not of an academic, peer reviewed standard. These are largely my thoughts and opinions on a haphazard trawl through something I find interesting.

Much of what I write is speculative questioning - so all contributions are most welcome. I'm keen to learn more about the field as well as receive wider opinions on what I write.

I have started including some interviews and rudimentary research on the site. The people in question have very kindly taken time to answer a few simple questions on the subject that may provide anyone who's interested with a basic understanding of the field.

Sometimes the more academic stuff out there assumes a lot for the lay reader to take in and some of the debates require so much clarification of what is an emotion, or what is acceptable as methodology and sourcing etc as to be quite hard work.

Hopefully this site doesn't do that, though as I've mentioned before it's a bit haphazard. Such is the nature of whim upon an interest.

The idea ultimately is to make a documentary (I work in TV mostly) about the subject, but there's so much to learn about first that I'm just taking it one step at a time.

The photos are just because I love the Highlands and Islands of Scotland which I try and visit when I can - hence the user name scot in exile. My thanks to the photographers who let me post their work up here. God knows my own is pretty ropey and doesn't do that amazing place justice.

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Tuesday 18 August 2009

that conversational thing

4 comments: