: Debra Hopkins, Jochen Kleres, Helena Flam, Helmut Kuzmics
: Theorizing Emotions Sociological Explorations and Applications
: Campus Verlag
: 9783593407425
: 1
: CHF 27.30
:
: Soziologische Theorien
: English
: 343
: Wasserzeichen/DRM
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: PDF
Theorizing Emotions reflects the recent turn to emotions in academia-not just in sociology but also in psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience. Drawing on the classic studies of Max Weber, Erving Goffman, Norbert Elias, and Theodor Adorno, several leading European scholars present their findings on the role of emotions in various facets of society, from the laboratory to the office to the media. Among the topics discussed are the tensions between feelings and feeling rules, the conscious and unconscious emotions of scientists, emotions and social disorder, the effect of the emotional turn as an element of advancing modernity, romantic love in U.S. and Israeli codes of conduct, and the role of mass media in generating massive public emotions. Emotionen sind das Thema der Stunde. Aktuelle soziologische Ansätze zielen auf ein neues Verständnis der Klassiker sowie auf das theoretisch fundierte Studium von Emotionen in Organisationen, der Wirtschaft, den Medien oder Sozialen Bewegungen. Die Beiträge korrigieren den Rationalismus der soziologischen Theoriebildung und belegen die Bedeutung von Gefühlen innerhalb der Gesellschaft.

Debra Hopkins forscht an der Universität Aberdeen. Helena Flam ist Professorin für Soziologie an der Universität Leipzig, wo Jochen Kleres derzeit promoviert. Helmut Kuzmics ist Professor für Soziologie in Graz.
Extreme Feelings and Feelings at Extremes Helena Flam The general aim of this chapter is to show that selected pre- and post-war classics of sociology interwove their discussions of the question of order with references to emotions. In fact they never left emotions out of their theorizing about social order. More specifically, I will demonstrate that some theorists believed that the social and political order constitutes an effective barrier to lurking, upsetting emotions, or even to life-and-limb threatening instincts and affects. Other theorists posited individuals as being both aware and wary of the painful emotions that threaten to surface when orderly interactions become upset. These theorists suggested that in order to prevent this from happening, individuals as social actors are willing to cooperate in sustaining social norms and conventional patterns of interactions. Taken together they surprise by their shared view that the social order and successful social interactions block negative emotions. More or less explicit in their writings is the idea that if we-as individuals and as social collectives-do not co-operate in sustaining political and social (interactive) order, we make each other and ourselves unhappy. Only a tiny minority among classical sociologists saw emotions as constitutive of the individual and the social order. They argued that emotions do 'good works'-they help individuals to develop 'social' selves that co-operate in creating and sustaining a 'good' society. Also in contrast to those who saw social order as blocking negative emotions, more recently several theorists have argued that (the hierarchical) social order cannot but produce negative emotional outcomes. In all these ways, this text thus shows that the question of order has been, and remains, also about emotions. Extreme Feelings at the Extremes - Unruly Times and Territories, System Breakdown, Disintegration Let me start with a couple of rather well known, and therefore briefly presented examples. In Max Weber's reflections on charisma and in particular on the prophets, we find the first association between the breakdown of a social order and negative emotions (Flam 2002, 57-9). He proposed that when the law and rules break down and people find themselves in the situation of distress, they turn very emotional-desperate in fact, which makes them susceptible to various contenders for charismatic power. These, be it prophets, saviors, knights or political leaders, are all extremely emotional. Weber was impressed by the furious anger of prophets, and not only by their rationalizing reforms (Barbalet 2000), such as introducing taxes or bureaucracy. The feeling and thinking of the charismatic leaders transcends
Contents6
Preface: Notes on the Sociology of Emotions in Europe – Jochen Kleres8
Introduction: An Emotions Lens on the World – Arlie Russell Hochschild30
Consciousness, Emotions, and Science – Jack Barbalet40
Extreme Feelings and Feelings at Extremes – Helena Flam74
Sociology as Narrative: Examples of Sociological Language in “Classic” Texts – Helmut Kuzmics96
Hearts or Wombs? A Cultural Critique of Radical Feminist Critiques of Love – Eva Illouz and Eitan Wilf122
Mediatizing Traumas in the Risk Society: A Sociology of Emotions Approach – Nicolas Demertzis144
The Civilizing of Emotions: Formalization and Informalization – Cas Wouters170
What Makes Us Modern(s)? The Place of Emotions in Contemporary Society – Patrick Becker196
Shame and Conformity: The Deference-Emotions System – Thomas J. Scheff222
A “Neurosociology” of Emotion? Progress, Problems and Prospects – Simon J. Williams246
Refugee Solidarity: Between National Shame and Global Outrage – James Goodman270
Just Being There: Buddies and the Emotionality of Volunteerism – Jochen Kleres292
Mediated Parasocial Emotions and Community: How Media May Strengthen or Weaken Social Communities – Katrin Döveling316
Notes on Contributors340