Reflections on History of Science, and History of Emotions

My presentation will suggest different ways in which the study of science and its history can greatly expand (and perhaps even rewrite or challenge aspects of) the history of emotions. I will discuss the challenges that historians who wish to exploit science as a resource for the history of emotions must overcome. How does the historian identify emotions in a culture that, at least since the eighteenth century, deliberately and methodologically excluded emotions from its texts, narratives, practices, and practitioners, and admonished its members to suppress their blushes, control their disgust reactions, and abolish their tears? I will present different possibilities for expanding the history of emotions through the study of science and its history. For example, to what extent were the science of emotions and/or new scientific theories and models of emotions instrumental, perhaps even crucial, for broader shifts in emotional cultures; to what extent was science writ large—not the science of emotions--significant for emotions. The study of science and its history can expand the very idea of emotion in offering new definitions and identities for emotions. These “other” emotions are not immediately recognized as emotions and often do not appear in terms of common sense notions of emotions. Yet these emotions should become part of the history of emotions and extend the repertoire of emotions. I will provide examples or suggest alternative interpretations of major arguments in the extant history-of-emotions literature in light of a history of science perspective.