Rationalisierungen des Gefuhls. Zum Verhaltnis von Wissenschaft und Emotionen 1880-1930

Abstract

The history of emotions is a growing field. Its most famous advocates, William Reddy and Barbara Rosenwein, have called on historians to examine different emotional norms and communities, as well as the ways in which past actors attained emotional mastery, switched styles of emotional management, or sought refuge from emotional regimes. The volume under review is much more modest in its objectives: Rationalisierungen des Gefühls is primarily concerned with emotions in the humanities and social sciences. The editors have three aims. They wish to trace past modes of thought about emotions, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; they wish to reconstruct the role emotions played in the lives and practices of Wissenschaftler; and, most ambitiously, they wish to study the relationship between scientific interest in the emotions and the ‘emotional culture’ of the surrounding society. In the end, the book mainly addresses the first two objectives, and of the two, only the first is handled with great sophistication.