Laura Doan, Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality and Women’s Experience of Modern War, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Reviewed by Jane Mackelworth ‘The problem for the historian of sexuality is how to explore the sexual past, even the … Continue reading
We all love a bit of ecstasy, don’t we? Not the drug (though that’s a form of ecstatic experience) but, more broadly, those moments of expansion, elation and awe we sometimes feel, when our heart-strings seem to vibrate in harmony … Continue reading
Around a quarter of the world’s two billion Christians now sign up to the Pentecostalist or neo-Pentecostalist belief that God talks to them. That includes some educated people like, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury. How is this possible, in an … Continue reading
I’ve just re-read William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, which he gave as a series of lectures in 1902. It is a marvelous book, in which James attempts to take a pragmatic and empirical approach to religious experiences, remaining open … Continue reading
Ann Cvetkovich, Depression: a Public Feeling. (Duke University Press, Durham & London, 2012). Reviewed by Sarah Crook. Ann Cvetkovich’s Depression: a Public Feeling forms a part of a broader project under way in the United States around the rubric of ‘Public … Continue reading
Last year, I was asked to chair a panel on music and emotions at the Society for the Social History of Medicine’s annual conference. I knew next to nothing about the topic, but enjoyed hearing the talks. Since then, I’ve … Continue reading
Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy Martin Pickavé and Lisa Shapiro (eds.) Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.285 Anyone interested in philosophical characterisations of emotion, both contemporary and historical, knows the standard line concerning the relationship between emotion … Continue reading
Valerie Purton, Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition: Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Lamb (London: Anthem Press, 2012) After a year of centenary celebrations of Dickens and his world, Valerie Purton’s book reminds us that the author has as many critics … Continue reading
Dr Jenny Hillman is Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the European University Institute, Florence. Here she reviews Susan Karant-Nunn’s book The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany (Oxford University Press, 2010), recently released … Continue reading
Dr Rob Boddice is Marie-Curie CoFund Fellow at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Languages of Emotion’, at the Freie Universität Berlin, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Birkbeck Pain Project, London. Here he reviews Javier Moscoso’s new book Pain: A Cultural History (Palgrave … Continue reading