Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History

This volume investigates the various interactions of people, feelings, and things throughout pre-modern Europe. The subject of materiality has been gaining interest in recent historical inquiry, alongside growing emphasis on the relationships between objects, emotions, and affect in archaeological and sociological research. The historical intersections between materiality and emotions, however, have remained under-theorized, particularly with respect to objects which have continuing resonance over extended periods of time, or across cultural and geographical space. The book addresses this need to develop an appropriate cross-disciplinary theoretical framework for analysing the emotional meanings of objects in European history. It draws together an international group of historians, art historians, curators, and literary scholars working on a variety of cultural, literary, visual, and material sources. Objects considered include books, letters, prosthetics, religious relics, shoes, stone, and textiles, and individual chapters address the ways in which emotions such as despair, fear, grief, hope, love, and wonder become inscribed in and ascribed to these items, producing ‘emotional objects’ of significance and agency.