Fear and Its Opposites in the History of Emotions

Abstract

This book examines the “problem” of fear in its intellectual, social, and political incarnations. It situates fear in world-historical terms, thus breaking new ground in the historical and cultural analysis of emotions. Each contributor is specifically concerned with a discrete historical moment, thereby emphasizing the variability and contingency of fears past, present, and future. Examples of such moments are the experience of fear among eighteenth-century rebels, priests, and colonial administrators in Peru; the universal fear response evoked by the Thirty Years War; and the technologically mediated experiences of anxiety and fear collectively felt by cinemagoers in Weimar Germany. This introduction discusses some of the lineaments of the history and philosophy of emotion as it pertains to the problem of fear, highlighting counterpoints or analogues to fear such as comfort, assurance, and hope.