The History of Emotions
The History of Emotions
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情感的历史
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
Christian Bailey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Christian Bailey
“情感的历史究竟是什么？”在这个领域工作的历史学家仍然经常遇到这个问题，它表明情绪的历史很难理解，但也很难忽视。活跃在其他领域的历史学家可能已经注意到，玛丽女王学院、伦敦大学、马克斯普朗克学会和澳大利亚研究委员会最近成立了（并资助了）情绪研究中心。然而，大量情感研究人员的出现并没有完全消除人们的担忧，即历史学家无法真正理解情感，也不值得持续而认真地考虑。甚至像彼得·伯克（Peter Burke）这样曾经可疑的文化史领域的先驱，在认识到情感的前景的同时，也对情感的生存能力的历史感到好奇。在他看来，如果历史学家认为情绪在时间上是稳定的（因此似乎是在前文化时期），那么他们所能做的就是记录对这些恒定情绪的态度变化。这使得历史学家写的是思想史，而不是情感史。相比之下，如果历史学家将情绪视为历史变量，那么他们可能会提出更多创新的工作，但他们也可能最终难以为自己的结论找到证据。以焦虑为例，伯克尖锐地问道，一个历史学家如何“可能找到证据”来确定人们在某个特定的历史时期是否比另一个时期更焦虑，而不是简单地受到不同焦虑的影响。本文所述的这些书代表了最新一代历史学家的努力，他们试图回答伯克的问题，并研究情感历史上的根本变化是否以及如何被绘制出来。
‘What exactly is the history of emotions?’ This question, often still encountered by historians working in the field, suggests that the history of emotions is difficult to understand yet hard to ignore. Historians active in other areas may have noticed the recent founding (and funding) of emotions research centres by Queen Mary, University of London, the Max Planck Society and the Australian Research Council. Yet the emergence of a critical mass of emotions researchers has not altogether dispelled concerns that emotions are not really accessible to the historian or worthy of sustained and serious consideration. Even a pioneer of the once dubious field of cultural history such as Peter Burke has wondered about the history of emotions’ viability while recognising its promise. As he sees it, if historians regard emotions as stable across time (and thus pre-cultural, it seems) then all they can do is chart changing attitudes to these constant emotions. This leaves historians writing intellectual history but not the history of emotions. If historians, by contrast, treat emotions as historically variable then they may deliver more innovative work, but they may also end up struggling to find evidence for their conclusions. Taking anxiety as an example, Burke asks pointedly how ‘could a historian possibly find evidence to establish’ whether people were more anxious in a given historical period than another, rather than simply being affected by different anxieties. The books under review here represent the latest generation of historians’ efforts to answer Burke's questions and examine whether and how fundamental changes in the history of emotions can be charted.