Description: Today the emotions are a topic of intense concern not only in the psychological and neurobiological sciences but among humanists and social scientists as well. The number of research publications in the field is enormous, and the interest generated by that research has spilled over into the public realm. Yet, for all this, there is no consensus as to the basic nature and workings of the emotions. On the contrary, disputes that can be traced back more than a hundred years continue to haunt. The situation is so fraught that, in spite of flourishing laboratories and thriving journals, the field appears to lack cumulative progress. Ruth Leys provides a genealogical analysis of what brought us to where we are today. Focusing on the period from the post-World War II revival of interest in the emotions to the present, she illuminates the debate and in the process sheds light on why so many of today's humanists and social scientists not only are drawn to the neurosciences but also embrace what she argues is the wrong picture of the emotions. An essential read for anyone seeking to understand the science of emotion.
Brief description: Ruth Leys is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor Emerita in the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University.
Review Quotes: "If you are fed up with the binariness of emotion theories, read Ruth Leys' The Ascent of Affect . . . . Refreshingly, she doesn't start from the view that emotions are visceral, sensation-like and universal or from the view that they depend on meaning, culture and (specifically human) cognition. Instead, she evaluates the development, difficulties and merits of both these two opposed approaches, as well as elucidating the inadequacies of neuroscientific analysis."-- "Times Higher Education"