Science and Emotions after 1945
A Transatlantic Perspective
Through the first half of the twentieth century, emotions were a legitimate object of scientific study across a variety of disciplines. After 1945, however, in the wake of Nazi irrationalism, emotions became increasingly marginalized and postwar rationalism took central stage. Emotion remained on the scene of scientific and popular study but largely at the fringes as a behavioral reflex, or as a concern of the private sphere. So why, by the 1960s, had the study of emotions returned to the forefront of academic investigation? In "Science and Emotions after 1945", Frank Biess and Daniel M. Gross chronicle the curious resurgence of emotion studies and show that it was fueled by two very different sources: social movements of the 1960s and brain science. A central claim of the book is that the relatively recent neuroscientific study of emotion did not initiate – but instead consolidated – the emotional turn by clearing the ground for multidisciplinary work on the emotions".Science and Emotions after 1945" tells the story of this shift by looking closely at scientific disciplines in which the study of emotions has featured prominently, including medicine, psychiatry, neuroscience, and the social sciences, viewed in each case from a humanities perspective.
About the Author
Frank Biessis professor of history at the University of California, San Diego and the author of "Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany".
Daniel M. Grossis associate professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of "The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's 'Rhetoric' to Modern Brain Science".
Reviews
"Our concept of emotion is in large part shaped by the science of emotion, especially the experimental psychology of emotion that emerged in the nineteenth century. The history of modern emotions since the nineteenth century should, then, in large part be a history of science. For an orientation in this field, Biess and Gross have gathered the sharpest thinking being done by the smartest people. But this trail-blazing book does more than survey the psychology, neuroscience, economics, or sociology of emotion: it also puts emotion back into science. Emotions take center stage – as lived realities that motivated and puzzled the scientists who studied them. Anyone seeking perspective on the 'emotional turn' in the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences cannot afford to miss 'Science and Emotions after 1945'" – Jan Plamper, Goldsmiths, University of London
"In this book of lively essays, the 1950s, with its cold war panic; the 1960s, with its women's movement; and the 1970s, with its totalizing market economies are here shown – along with many other historically salient moments – to be the unexpected catalysts of today's scientific culture. 'Science and Emotions after 1945' tells us not only why the sciences today are so interested in emotions but also how humanists can critique, use, and transform such insights in their own work on emotions" – Barbara H. Rosenwein, Loyola University Chicago
"The history of the science of emotions is here brilliantly outlined, both by locating experimental science in its historical context, and by simultaneously challenging how emotions are treated by science and the humanities. The result is a book rich with the kind of constructive controversies that produce new understandings and new roads to follow" – Nigel Thrift, University of Warwick
