Emotions, a Social and Historical Phenomenon: Some Notes on the Chinese Case
Abstract
The article begins with some comments on the comparative method necessary for any research concerning a different culture, owing to the intrinsic ‘anachronism’ and ‘non-equivalence’ of notions and lexicon. In particular, it is explained what the author means for mental structure and the use of categories such as ‘emotions’ and collective imagery. It is shortly explained why the analysis of emotions in fact should be extended to the whole emotional process (which includes nonemotion-terms, such as script, motivations, manifestations and emotion markers, symbolic expressions), and to other phenomena, such as habits and behaviours, temperaments, psychosomatic reactions, beliefs, visions and dreams. Then it is stressed how the manifestations of emotions are ‘social phenomena’ and thus they reflect the deep strata of the cultural environment, and contain information on such elements. The second part of the article presents some characteristics of the emotional imagery representation on the basis of a long-term project on emotions and imagery in late imperial China. Concrete examples are given on the concept of love and on the normal-abnormal feelings in extreme cognitive and affective conditions.
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