The Cultivation of Emotions in the Press

Abstract

In early nineteenth-century German-speaking Europe, the press was a key cultural forum, in which emotions were discussed in public through newly emerging journalistic practices and discourses. The era of educational reforms created debates about the right kinds of means of cultivating the human. One of the key concepts of these debates was the concept of ‘education of the heart’ (Bildung des Herzens). The searchable collections of German-language newspapers and periodicals, such as the ANNO and digiPress repositories provided by the Austrian National Library and Bavarian State Library, open up new vistas of exploring the material across regional borders and established categories and genres, which provides new insight into the ways in which the press shaped ideas of and discourses surrounding the education of emotions in German-speaking Europe.