The Study of Emotions as an Area of Interdisciplinary Cooperation: The History and Sociology of Emotions in the Search for the Explanation of “Emotional Turn” (On the Russian Translation of the Jan Plamper’s The History of Emotions)

Abstract

A review of Y. Plamper’s book The History of Emotions could hardly reflect its content of the process of the emergence of the history of the discipline of emotions, and the rich variety of problems and themes in the field of emotion research. Therefore, the topic of this article concerns the meaning of this monograph for the sociological study of emotions. We tried to highlight the points of the intersection of the history and the sociology of emotions, including the sociological explanation of the so-called “emotional turn” in social sciences and humanities and in everyday life of contemporary society. The main theoretical and methodological opposition — social constructivism versus universalism/naturalism — pervades all sciences researching emotions today, and a researcher’s destiny depends on the choice within the framework of this opposition. Plamper’s book allows the making of that choice, while inciting researchers to a synthetic approach. The book helps to refine and enrich the sociological study of emotions on the basis of factual evidence and new terminology. One of the most important tasks of both disciplines is the explanation of the changes of the emotional culture of modern societies, which, according to the author of the article, involves an “explosion” of interest in emotions in theory, research, and everyday life. Perhaps a new “sentimental age” has begun as an unintended consequence of the rationalization of all spheres of society. The combination of a rational attitude to emotions and, at the same time, the special attention to feelings, the explosions of collective emotions, and the persistent searching for authentic feelings are features of the emotional culture of our time.