HST423 A History of Emotions, from the Medieval Age to the Modern

Though History of Emotions is a relatively recent subdiscipline, it has seen a huge rise in popularity in a relatively short period – to the extent that it is now easy to find journals devoted exclusively to the field, research centres specialising in it, and monograph series that publish numerous books every year. Nevertheless, it is not easy to define what History of Emotions means, or the conceptual tools that it must encompass or exclude. At its heart, though, is the notion that emotions – like other, more easily visible phenomena – are malleable and quite likely to change over time. Taking this as its starting point, the module will explore historical traces of a range of emotions from the medieval period to the modern (including  anger, loneliness, jealousy, love, amongst others) in a variety of European and non-European settings. It will also discuss concepts that allow us to exercise a firmer grasp over something that is as supposedly flimsy as emotions.