"When does talking about feelings become a political act?" was one of the questions that preoccupied the pop theorist Mark Fisher. In his book "Ghosts of My Life", he actually diagnosed the depression that haunted him as a social symptom. Using pop cultural phenomena such as Brit Pop, Retromania and Dark Jungle, Fisher offers a lucid contemporary analysis of capitalism and argues in favour of a "hauntological melancholy", which is not resignation, but "rather the refusal to give in – that is, the refusal to adapt to what is called 'reality' under current conditions". Melancholy as resistance. Unfortunately, the ghosts of depression tormented Mark Fisher all too much, which is why he took his own life four weeks ago. What remains are his smart and inspiring books and the beautiful word "hauntology" in pop discourse, borrowed from Derrida's "Marx's Ghosts".
As an example, refere to the latest issue of "Metamorphosen" [1], in which Luzia Niedermeier, who also works here, writes about the "Spectre of Order", as well as the much-praised volume "Futur II" by the pop band Ja, Panik, which attempts to defend itself against the abolition of the future and the looming mutation into ghosts.
In recent years, historians have also been increasingly concerned with emotions. This year's ZZF Doctoral Forum, which begins today, is dedicated to a little sister of depression, namely anxiety. Based on the thesis that collective and individual, abstract and concrete fears form important narratives of 20th and 21st century societies, doctoral students will discuss their research projects in five panels. On this occasion, we present a handful of publications on the "history of emotions", which can be found in the library:
Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte [Journal for the History of Ideas], 10 (2016 ) Issue 4 (Z 466)
The Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte, published by the three major literary archives of the Federal Republic of Germany in Wolfenbüttel, Marbach and Weimar, also devoted itself to the "Minor Depressions" in winter 2016. In the contributions by Peter-André Alt, Durs Grünbein, Paul Nolte and others, melancholy is examined in intellectual struggles of the past, but anxiety, doom and depression are focussed on as "political mood feelings of the present".
Ute Frevert u.a.: Gefühlswissen. Eine lexikalische Spurensuche in der Moderne (ZZF 23423) sowie dies.: Emotions in History – Lost and Found, beide 2011 (ZZF 23087)
Ute Frevert, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development since 2008, is considered a pioneer in the historical study of emotions. The volume, which is structured as an encyclopaedia, examines how knowledge about feelings and their evaluation have changed over the last 300 years. Scientific and social debates about affects, passions, sensations and emotions in Europe serve as material for analysis, centred on questions such as: Are feelings of a mental or physical nature? Do animals have feelings? Are men less emotional than women? Are there childish and adult emotions? Can feelings be ‘civilised’? Do they make us ill? Can collectives feel? The fact that emotions and gender roles are subject to judgements that correspond closely to the social, cultural and political structures of the respective societies and are therefore not simply natural is one result of research into emotions. In the monograph, which was also published in 2011, the emotion researcher summarises the history of emotions in the three chapters Losing, Gendering and Finding Emotions under the question: The Economy of Emotions: How it works and why it matters?
Jan Plamper: Geschichte und Gefühl ["History and Emotion"] 2012 (ZZF 24604)
From 2008 to 2012, Jan Plamper worked as a Dilthey Fellow at the Max Planck Institute with Ute Frevert. At the end of his tenure, his monograph on the foundations of the history of emotions was published. It centres on questions that will also be discussed at the doctoral forum: How does honour change over time, what does trust mean in economic history, what did the proverbial ‘German Angst’ bring about in the 20th century, and why are we in the so-called therapeutic age?
Patrick Kury: Der überforderte Mensch. Eine Wissensgeschichte vom Stress zum Burnout ["The overstrained human. A history of knowledge from stress to burnout"], 2012 (ZZF 24809)
When anxiety and excessive demands become too much, most people experience this as stress – or as something they label as such. In fact, the term is relatively new, but the feeling behind it is certainly not. Patrick Kury tells the story of stress: from the study of organic processes in the 1930s to psychosocial stress research in the USA and Scandinavia and the broad popularisation of the concept of stress since the 1970s. Stress is currently experiencing a boom in the burnout disorder. Today, according to Patrick Kury, stress and burnout are catch-all terms that can be used to critically describe the effects of modern life on the individual.
Luc Ciompi und Elke Endert: Gefühle machen Geschichte ["Emotions Make History"], 2011 (ZZF 22628)
In their essay, the two authors examine the link between political staging and collective emotions, focussing on contemporary history "from Hitler to Obama". They note that the media coverage of natural disasters, war and terror as well as major political, sporting and cultural events on television, radio and the internet spreads new images of collective anger, fear or joy every day. The authors are particularly interested in the power of "we" feelings in National Socialism, in the Israel-Palestine conflict and in the election of Barack Obama as American president, and reflect on the consequences of this for our image of humanity, for crisis intervention, mediation and the treatment of collective trauma.
Oliver Grau und Andreas Keil: Mediale Emotionen ["Media Emotions"], 2005 (ZZF 22468)
Art historian Oliver Grau and cognitive scientist Andreas Keil are interested in how images and sounds stimulate emotions. In their anthology, intended as a contribution to "transdisciplinary emotion research", films such as Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph des Willens" ("Triumph of the Will") and the information and recruitment video game "America's Army" are analysed for their conscious control of emotions. As a result, Andreas Keil advocates a "multivariate psychology of emotions in affective media analysis", but also asks, together with Jens Eder, how a network theory of emotions relates to the neuronal networks of neuroscientists – and thus comes quite close to the claim of transdisciplinarity.
Bernd Greiner (Hg.): Angst im Kalten Krieg [Fear in the Cold War"], 2009 (ZZF 21120)
Bernd Greiner, who published and publishes relevant work on the history of the Cold War and who will also be on the podium of the doctoral forum this evening, is co-editor of this volume, which draws attention to the emotional centre of the Cold War: the fear of nuclear weapons and the political game with fear – "having fear" and "making fear". Maximum danger emanated from the very means that were supposed to guarantee the greatest possible security. To credibly deter, you had to intimidate and unsettle your opponents and keep them permanently guessing: He was never to gain a clear picture of one's capabilities and intentions, never to be certain how far the predictability of his opponent extended. Whether and when the deliberately staged uncertainty would turn against its creators, i.e. provoke the very aggression it was supposed to suppress, thus became the subtle provocative theme of the era.
Erhard Oeser: Die Angst vor dem Fremden ["The Fear of the Other"], 2015 (ZZF 28399)
Fear of the other seems to be a fundamental anthropological constant, and the Latin word for it: xenophobia, sounds more like a disease than a construct. Erhard Oeser traces the roots of xenophobia from the beginning of human history to the Islamic State and the attacks in Paris in 2015. He analyses the different manifestations of xenophobia, tracing the turning points at which the rejection of the foreign turns into violence and the desire to annihilate. And – as a philosopher – he searches for the mechanisms that enable a return to peaceful coexistence.
Pierre-Frédéric Weber: Timor Teutonorum. Angst vor Deutschland seit 1945 – eine europäische Emotion im Wandel ["Fear of Germany since 1945 – a European emotion in transition], 2015 (ZZF 26658)
Parallel to xenophobia, Timor Teutonorum refers to the fear of Germany and the Germans. Pierre-Frédéric Weber states that this fear is one of the most deeply rooted collective emotions in European societies and even plays a key role in international political decisions. His analysis, which examines the construction, permanence, reduction, reactivation and political instrumentalisation of the ambivalent Timor Teutonorum, focuses on the two neighbouring German states of France and Poland and thus on a western and an eastern neighbour.
Heinz Bude: Gesellschaft der Angst ["Society of Fear"], 2014 (ZZF 28363)
Sociologist Heinz Bude assumes that fear has become the central social force. The book's blurb reads: "Anxiety characterises a time in which populists from the right are on the rise in Europe, in which depression is spreading among ordinary people and in which capitalism is experienced by everyone as a context of crisis. Anxiety is the expression for a society with a shaky foundation. The majority class feels that its social status is threatened and its future jeopardised. People are dominated by the feeling of being thrown into a world that no longer belongs to them." The taz newspaper acknowledges that Heinz Bude has outlined "the contours of a 'post-democratic' and 'post-secular' discontent" with this book.
Wolfgang Koeppen: Angst ["Fear"], 1987 (SB/L, Ko1)
A literary example of fear dominating everyday life can be found in the prose collection of the same name by Wolfgang Koeppen, available in the Simone Barck library, which is now fully catalogued. The eponymous story from 1974 is about a man living in New York who is obsessed with the fear of a violent death in a world that he can only perceive as "very evil". Help, comfort, companionship is utterly impossible: "Kaplan was afraid, he was sick with fear, and would have liked to be different from all those who were afraid and whom he found disgusting. Like them, he secured the door after coming home. As stupid, as suspicious, as trusting in the course of business as they were. It was incomprehensible."
We wish you an enjoyable, enlightening and completely fear-free reading,
the library team
[1] http://www.magazin-metamorphosen.de/heft/
(16.02.2017)