Science and Emotions after 1945: A Transatlantic Perspective

Biess, Frank [Editor]; Gross, Daniel M. [Editor];

ISBN 10: 022612648X / ISBN 13: 9780226126487

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2014

About this Item

2014 University of Chicago Press (Chicago, Illinois), 6 x 9 inches tall trade paperback, [6], 432 pp. Slight rubbing and edgewear to covers, with a bit of 'cover curl' to the fore edge of the front cover. Inscription believed to be by co-author Daniel Gross to half title page. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked. ~DDD~ [2,0P] 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.

Seller Inventory # DDD-0881-9659

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Science and Emotions after 1945: A Transatlantic Perspective
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022612648X
• ISBN 13: 9780226126487
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

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 Biess is 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. He lives in California. Daniel M. Gross is 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. He lives in California.