proved so importanttothe making of the proletarian dream, the samecan be
concluded about the discourses of emotion, including their historicaldefini-
tions, culturalexpressions,and gendered divides.
III
Emotionsinhistory and historical emotions are inseparable from representa-
tions. They exist onlyinthe form oftextual and discursive practices and are
availableto critical interpretation onlythrough an ongoing reflection on their
own historicity. These connections can be reconstructed inanumberofways:
through writingsabout emotions and emotionality;through representations of
specific emotions, such as hope, fear,hatred, and pride; and,most importantly,
through the emotional discourses embedded in culturalpractices,beginning
with therecognition of painand suffering inmelodramaticgenres and the cele-
bration of solidarity in performances of community.Treating political emotions
as atransformational forceinsocial movements, however,means to acknowl-
edge their contributionto,and place in,alonger history of emotions. Moreover,
using aesthetic emotions in reconstructing the proletarian dream requires recog-
nition of theirshared dependence on cultural traditions, includingtheories of
emotion,that originateinhegemonic practicesbut sometimes continue in coun-
terhegemonic contexts.
Emotionshaveemergedasanexciting new subject of inquiry in what,fol-
lowing the various linguistic, visual, spatial, and performative turns, is some-
times called the emotional turn.¹⁵Intellectual historians, social historians,liter-
ary scholars, cultural anthropologists, and cultural theorists have produced
numerous studies on the history of emotions and the place of emotions in history
Fordiscussions of the emotional turn in history,see PeterN. Stearns and CarolZ. Stearns,
“Emotionology:Clarifyingthe History of Emotions and Emotional Standards,”American Histor-
icalReview90.4 (1985): 813–836; BarbaraH.Rosenwein,“Worryingabout Emotions in History,”
American HistoricalReview107. 3(2002): 821–845. Auseful summary can be found inUteFrevert,
“DefiningEmotions: Concepts and Debates over Three Centuries,”inEmotionalLexicons:Con-
tinuity and Changeinthe VocabularyofFeeling 1700– 2000 ,ed. UteFrevert(Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press,2014), 1–30.For acomprehensive overview,see JanPlamper,TheHistoryofEmo-
tions:AnIntroduction ,trans. Keith Tribe(Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press,2015).Foramore
theoretical discussion of emotional practices, see Monique Scheer,“Ar eEmotionsaKind of
Practice(and Is That What Makes Them Have aHistory)?ABourdieuianApproach to Under-
standingEmotion,”HistoryandTheory51.2 (2012), 193–220. Forasimilarapproach, see
Benno Gammerl,“EmotionalStyles—Concepts and Challenges,”Rethinking History16.2 (2012):
161 – 175.
Introduction 21