Overlaps and Intersections in New Scholarship on Empires, Beliefs, and Emotions

Abstract

Feminist standpoint theory and post-modernism have both taught us that our position matters, so I would like to establish mine. I am not a historian of the emotions, though perhaps better said I have never defined myself as such, and I am writing this in August of 2016 in the United States. Earlier this summer voters in Britain voted to leave the European Union, and Republicans in the United States chose as their presidential candidate a man who has never held political office and has little familiarity with the world other than its golf courses, casinos, and hotels. Both those who supported and those who were appalled by these decisions saw emotions as voters’ key motivations, and, somewhat surprisingly, were not that different in describing these emotions: anger, fear, resentment, nostalgia. If I am to understand today’s politics, perhaps I should become a historian of the emotions.