Prof.

Brian Cowan Leacock 638

Brian.cowan2@mcgill.ca Mon 10.20am-12.30pm

HIST 511
The History of Emotions

Readings and research on the history of emotions, with focus on how historians have studied the
emotional life of the past. Particular attention to the various ways emotion has been conceived in
the past and the historical methodologies used to study emotional experiences.

The history of emotions is a fast developing field. This seminar provides an introduction to the
topic with a focus on how historians have studied the emotional life of the past.

Evaluation:

1) [10%]: Seminar Participation: attendance and regular, informed contributions to class

discussions. Every unexcused absence will result in a full percentage point removed from
the final calculated grade.

2) [20%]: Mid-Term Prospectus : (4 pp. plus annotated bibliography of c. 25 sources):

Upload to MyCourses before 12 November 2018.

3) [25%]: Reading Review and Oral Presentation: To be scheduled during the first
meetings of the seminar. You will need to write a short (2pp.) review of at least one
additional reading, and you will present this review to the seminar in class. You should
upload the written review to MyCourses.

4) [45%]: Final Research Paper: (c. 20 pp. [c. 30 pp. for MA students] plus bibliography).
Be sure to consult with your professor before settling on a topic. The research paper must
be based on original research using primary sources informed by a knowledge of the
relevant historiography on your chosen topic. Upload to MyCourses before Tuesday, 4
December 2018.

Most readings for the course will be determined individually for each student, but it is
recommended that you purchase these two books. Both are available for purchase at the Word
Bookstore at 468 Milton St.:

 Rob Boddice, The History of Emotions, (Manchester, 2018)

 Dylan Evans, Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford, 2001)

McGill values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of
cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures
(see www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).
In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the instructor’s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in
this course is subject to change.
In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in
English or in French any written work that is to be graded.
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Office Hours: Mon / Wed 1-3pm in Lea 636. Please feel free to see me during office hours or by
appointment.

An introduction to the issues of the course may be found in Jan Plamper, The History of Emotions:
An Introduction, translated by Keith Tribe (Oxford, 2015).

Other useful surveys include the following:

Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine, and Georges Vigarello, eds., Histoire des émotions, 3 vols.,
(Paris, 2016-17).

Barbara Rosenwein, What Is the History of Emotions? (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018)

Susan Broomhall, ed., Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, (Routledge, 2017)

The monographs in the Oxford University Press series ‘Emotions in History’; the ‘Palgrave Studies
in the History of Emotions’; and the Univ. of Illinois Press ‘History of Emotions’ series are worth
investigating.

Centres for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin,
at Queen Mary University of London, and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence
for the History of Emotions all maintain websites with material of interest to the field.

See also the journals: Emotion Review; Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS)

A useful bibliography for the field is available through H-Net:

https://networks.h-net.org/node/6034/discussions/12094/ann-select-bibliography-emotions-
history

Assignments and Expectations:

As with all seminars, reading the assigned texts carefully and discussing them critically in class
is your primary responsibility. You should expect to read c. 150-200 pages per week.
Readings preceded by an asterisk (*) are common readings and should be read by all members of
the seminar. In addition to the common readings, you will be assigned a set of individual
readings to report on, and discuss with, the rest of the seminar.
The seminar culminates in the submission of a research paper. A mid-term research
prospectus is required. After discussing your project with me in advance, you should bring it to
class and be prepared to discuss it with the rest of the seminar. The prospectus should be short
(no more than four or five pages), but it should pose a problem you intend to tackle in your
research and it should state how you intend to go about solving that problem. You should also
include an annotated bibliography of the sources you intend to use to write your essay. You
don’t have to have read all of the works in your bibliography in order to annotate them, but you
should be able to indicate the reasons why you think they may (or may not) be useful.
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Each student should consult with Prof. Cowan individually about the research topic you wish to
investigate and write on. Remember that all good research projects are focused around asking
good questions. Ask yourself ‘What is it about this topic that I want to know better?’ Then
move to questions such as these: ‘How can I find this out? Is it a feasible research project?
What sort or sorts of primary sources will I use? What is the state of the current historiography
on this topic?’

The best research projects will concentrate on a clearly focused question with a clearly defined
set of primary source materials. It will also demonstrate a command of the relevant
historiography on the topic and the kind of question you are asking.
The research paper must be based on the careful study of one or more primary sources. You
should struggle to make your argument clear and concise, and compress it into about twenty
pages for the final paper.

Your research paper must conform to the Chicago Manual of Style in all matters of style and
form: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org

1. Introduction: What are Emotions? [10 Sept.]

W: Orientation to the main themes and objectives of the seminar. Discussion of expectations
and requirements of the course. Begin reading Evans.

Evans, Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 1-75

Scott McLemee, “Getting Emotional” Chronicle of Higher Education (21 February 2003):
http://chronicle.com/article/Getting-Emotional/20528

2. Emotions in Biological and Social Perspective [17 Sept.]

M: Evans, Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 76-124

Additional Reading:
Lucien Febvre, ‘Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past’,
in Peter Burke, ed., A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, trans. K.
Folca (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 12-26
Keith Oatley, Emotions: A Brief History, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)
Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, (Macmillan,
2017)
Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, (Edinburgh, 2014)

3. What is the History of Emotions? [24 Sept.]

M: Boddice, The History of Emotions, 1-217

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Additional Reading:
Jan Plamper, The History of Emotions: An Introduction, (Oxford, 2015)
Peter Gay, Freud for Historians, (Oxford, 1985)
Ute Frevert, et al., Emotional Lexicons: Continuity and Change in the Vocabulary of Feeling
1700-2000, (Oxford, 2014)

4. QUEBEC ELECTION DAY [1 Oct.]: Class Does Not Meet

During this two week break from regular seminar meetings, you should be thinking about
your research project. Begin to look for primary sources and to formulate historically
significant and feasible questions that can be asked of them. We will briefly discuss your
ideas when we meet again in mid-October.

5. THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY [8 Oct.]: Class Does Not Meet

6. The Nineteenth-Century Discovery of Emotions [15 Oct.]

M: Thomas Dixon, “ ‘Emotion’: The History of a Keyword in Crisis,” Emotion Review 4:4
(October 2012): 338–344
Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, (1872) chs. 1-3,
conclusion (100pp), 1-82, 348-67
William James, “What is an Emotion?” Mind 9:34 (Apr., 1884): 188-205

Additional Reading:
Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological
Category, (Cambridge, 2003)
Daniel M. Gross, The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain
Science, (Cambridge, 2008)
Susan James, Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy,
(Oxford, 1997)

7. Beyond Constructionism: The New History of Emotions [22 Oct.]

M: Rom Harré, “An Outline of the Social Constructionist Viewpoint,” in The Social
Construction of Emotions, Rom Harré, ed., (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 2-14

William M. Reddy, ‘Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions,’

Current Anthropology, 38/3 (1997), 327-51; with comments and a response.

Optional: “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage: On the Cultural Force of Emotions,” in Renato
Rosaldo, The Day of Shelly’s Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief, (Stanford,
2014), 115-38.
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Additional Reading:
William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions,
(Cambridge, 2001), 1-137
Catherine A. Lutz, Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and
Their Challenge to Western Theory, (Chicago, 1988)
Michelle Z. Rosaldo, Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life,
(Cambridge, 1980)
Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, (Univ. of
California, (1986 reprint; 2016)
Ute Frevert, Emotions in History? Lost and Found, (Budapest, 2011)
“AHR Conversation: The Historical Study of Emotions,” with Nicole Eustace, Eugenia
Lean, Julie Livingston, Jan Plamper, William Reddy, and Barbara Rosenwein, American
Historical Review 117:5 (2012): 1487-1531
Jan Plamper, “The History of Emotions: An Interview with William Reddy, Barbara
Rosenwein, and Peter Stearns,” History & Theory 49:2 (2010): 237-65

8. Emotion and Civilization [29 Oct.]

M: Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, revised edition, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); Vol. I:
Changes in the Behaviour of the Secular Upper Classes in the West, 1-182

Additional Reading:
Johann Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich
Mammitzsch, trans., (Chicago, 1996)
Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese
Culture, (Cambridge, 2005)
C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of
Courtly Ideals 939-1210, (Philadelphia, 1985)
Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, (Ithaca, 2006)
William Reddy, The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South
Asia, and Japan, 900–1200 CE, (Chicago, 2012)
Robert van Krieken, “Norbert Elias and Emotions in History,” in David Lemmings and Ann
Brooks, eds., Emotions and Social Change: Historical and Sociological Perspectives,
(London, 2014), 19-42.
John Carter Wood, “The Limits of Culture? Society, Evolutionary Psychology and the
History of Violence,” Cultural and Social History 4:1 (2007): 95-114 with responses by
Martin Weiner, Barbara Rosenstein, and John Carter Wood in Cultural and Social
History 4:4 (2007): 545-65.

9. Emotion Work [5 Nov.]

M: Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure,”
American Journal of Sociology 85:3 (Nov., 1979): 551-575
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Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Feeling in Sociology and the World,” Sociologisk Forskning,
45:2 (2008): 46-50

Additional Reading:
Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Feeling, 3rd ed., (1983
reprint; Univ. of California, 2012)
Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, (Edinburgh, 1956)
Stephen Mennell, The American Civilizing Proccess, (Polity, 2007)
C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility, (Pennsylvania, 1999)
Willem Mastenbroek, “Negotiating as Emotion Management,” Theory, Culture & Society
16:4 (1999): 49-73

10. Research Workshops [12 Nov.]

M: Reports on research paper topics

PROSPECTUS DUE: Short reports on research paper topics

11. Emotional Communities and Emotional Practices [19 Nov.]

M: Barbara Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions in History,’ American Historical Review,

107/3 (2002): 821-45
Barbara Rosenwein, “Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions,” Passions in
Context 1 (2010)

Monique Scheer, “Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and is that what makes them have a
history)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion,” History and Theory 51:
2, (2012): 193–220

Additional Reading:
Barbara H. Rosenwein, Generations of Feeling: A History of Emotions, 600-1700,
(Cambridge, 2015)
Nicole Eustace, Passion is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American
Revolution, (North Carolina, 2008)
William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions,
(Cambridge, 2001), 141-333
Thomas Dixon, Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears, (Oxford, 2015)
Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the
American Right, (New York, 2016)
E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, (New York,
1992), esp. chapters 4-6.
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, (Cambridge, 1977)
Richard Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu, revised ed., (London, 2002)
Deborah Reed-Danahay, Locating Bourdieu, (Bloomington, IN, 2004), esp. 99-128
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12. Feeling Things and Sensing Spaces [26 Nov.]

M: Stephanie Downes, Sally Holloway, and Sarah Randles, ‘Introduction’ and ‘A Feeling for
Things, Past and Present’ in Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History,
(Oxford, 2017), 1-23

Sasha Handley, “Objects, Emotions and an Early Modern Bed-Sheet,” History Workshop
Journal 85, (April 2018): 169–194

Optional: Sally Holloway and Lucy Worsley, “ ‘Every body took notice of the scene of
the drawing room’: Performing Emotions at the Early Georgian Court, 1714-60,” Journal
for Eighteenth-Century Studies 40:3 (Sept. 2017): 443-64

Additional Reading:
Daniel Miller, Stuff, (Polity, 2010)
Daniel Miller, The Comfort of Things, (Wiley, 2009)
Colin Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, (Oxford, 1987)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions,
(1899; many editions, see the 2007 Oxford edition by Martha Banta)
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (1905; many editions, see the
2002 Penguin edition by Peter Baehr)

13. Deep History / Neurohistory [3 Dec.]

M: Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain, (California, 2008)

Optional: Lynn Hunt, “The Self and Its History,” American Historical Review 119:5,
(Dec. 2014): 1576–1586

Additional Reading:
Dror Wahrman, ‘Where Culture and Biology Meet’, review of Daniel Lord Smail, in Haaretz
(24 April 2008): http://www.haaretz.com/culture/books/where-culture-and-biology-meet-
1.244504
Daniel Lord Smail and Andrew Shryock, “History and the ‘Pre,’ ” American Historical
Review 118 (June 2013): 709–737
Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail, Deep History: The Architecture of Past and
Present, (California, 2011)
L. S. McGrath, “Historiography, Affect, and the Neurosciences,” History of Psychology,
20:2, (2017): 129-147.

14. Presentations [4 Dec.]: Special Tuesday meeting

Research papers due in seminar