Emotions in the Teaching of History (original) (raw)
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Worrying about Emotions in History by Barbara H. Rosenwein
As a medievalist, I have cause to be worried about emotions in history. I do not worry about the emotions themselves: people in the past, as now, expressed joy, sorrow, anger, fear, and many other feelings; these emotions had multiple meanings then (as they do today); they had their effects on others and were manipulated in turn (as ours do and are). What medievalists - indeed, all historians who want to get their history right - must worry about is how historians have treated emotions in history. The purpose of this article is to survey the historiography of emotions in Western history and to suggest some fresh ways to think about the topic.
Educational Process: International Journal
Background/purpose-Contemporary teaching focuses on the students' active role in the acquisition of knowledge and largely neglects the role of emotions. Given the importance of empathy when it comes to the emotional development of the individual, and the opportunities offered by history as a subject with regard to encouraging empathy, the main purpose of research is to analyze the extent to which history textbooks contribute to empathy as one of key competencies of today's world. Materials/methods-In the research, qualitative and quantitative content analysis was used. The analysis includes only one didacticmethodical toolkit of the textbook-questions and tasks by the formulation of which it is possible to identify in which direction the teaching process "moves" and to what extent it encourages the cultivation of emotions. Results-The results suggest that high school history textbooks overemphasize the cognitive aspect of the learning process while simultaneously inadequately putting students in a position that would also allow them to be more emotionally engaged with the historical events and to thereby develop empathy. Conclusion-It is necessary to develop detailed guidelines with clear instructions on how to encourage students' emotional engagement in individual subjects and teaching units.
In what ways can Historians ideas about the study of emotions throw new light on the past
In 1941 historian Lucien Febvre challenged historians to reflect upon the emotions, stating that no historian concerned with the social life of individuals can any longer disregard their importance . Historians were quick to see, as Joanna Bourke states, that examination of the “transformations undergone by emotions within societies could provide a unique insight into everyday life .” However, the Primary problem facing historians has been how to define emotions to enable a rigorous academic study . If emotions are to have such a thing, then the historian is behoved to seek out and propose suitable methods to achieve such ends. This essay will seek to review the number of different methodological approaches that have been developed to fulfil this requirement and how such work has gleamed new historical insight. First by looking at how it has been suggested we may correctly interpret the cultural meaning of emotion from the past, from our modern vantage point. This in turn requires a review of the debates surrounding how it is proposed historical analysis of emotions be carried out, or if it can at all. Finally, exploring two fundamental methodological concepts central to the history of the emotions, by using as means of analysis the history such methods have produced, the essay will demonstrate how such studies of emotion can contribute to the wider academic practice.
History of Education and Emotions
OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, EDUCATION, 2020
The encounter between the history of education and the emerging field of historical interest in emotions is a phenomenon of recent and fast development. Researchers must bear some specific dilemmas and challenges implied in attention to affective ties regarding the past of education, being the first to define critical concepts for the delimitation of the topic. Furthermore, this new path requires that theoretical and methodological issues be addressed. Among these issues are the difference in the development of educational historiographical research in countries or cultural regions. There are challenges for education historians interested in emotions and their efforts to overcome methodological chasms, as for example, the disparities between discourse and experience. Given the fact that the research on the history of emotions applied to education is still in its first steps, it is possible to outline some potential advances in the confluence of the historic-educational and the emotional fields.
Most of the pedagogies at memorials and museums in Germany dedicated to the crimes of National Socialism and the history of the GDR share the common pedagogical goal of developing a sense of empathy in students and visitors. This take on historical pedagogy holds that memorials and museums gain social legitimacy by communicating empathy, and thus by educating visitors about values and morality. The paper argues that this perspective on emotions in general and empathy in particular is very problematic and quite questionable. Teaching 20 th century German history should, first and foremost, be about teaching history and not teaching values. It is observable that the sort of historical empathy sought out by educators does not automatically lead pupils to the desired views on morality. Rather, it tends to overwhelm them. If we define historical learning as an autonomous act of productive appropriation, empathy might come to signify the way learners integrate their perception of the other into the self, which ultimately bolsters one's capacity to judge and to be mindful of the plights of others. For this reason, the paper argues that empathy should be conceived of not as a goal of historical pedagogy in and of itself, but rather as one possible point of departure for getting students and museum visitors to engage with history.
In this article, I will first make a brief case for why the history of emotions is relevant for teaching the Middle Ages and how it can be introduced to students, and then I will outline three lesson plans that can be integrated into an undergraduate syllabus that includes medieval literature and culture. Scholarship on the history of emotions has grown over the last decade from a field dominated by historians to one in which scholars from faculties across the humanities participate. It is an area that is rich in interdisciplinary collaboration, with researchers in literature, linguistics, history of science and medicine, social history, art, theatre, music, and psychology sharing findings and adapting and building upon each other's methods. Given the push in many universities (especially in the U.S.) to engage students in both interdisciplinary learning and innovative research, the history of emotions is an ideal subject area to bring into the classroom, and the growing scholarship on emotions in the Middle Ages provides learning support for teachers and students. Furthermore, the history of emotions provides scaffolding in critical thinking for students about how we interpret the past, and emotions can also serve as a hook to pique students' interest in studying the Middle Ages.
História da Historiografia: International Journal of Theory and History of Historiography, 2019
This article focuses on the emotional dimensions of academic historical work within the early twentieth-century Finnish community of historians. Its starting point is the inextricable intertwining of reason and emotion – a premise that is today accepted across disciplines. As the cognitive and the affective are interdependent in the production of knowledge, the formation of judgements and the making of meaning, emotions lie at the core of historians’ scholarly practices and the construction of the scholarly self. By discovering four main types of feeling-thinking processes that are common in historical work, the article argues that emotions not only make history personal, but also make it meaningful in the first place. On the theoretical level, the analysis leans on the insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, makes use of readings of Mark Johnson’s and James M. Jasper’s work and exploits the concept of the relational self of the historians Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack.
EMOTIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE: A READER
Human Affairs: Postdisciplinary Humanities & Social Sciences Quarterly, 2010
s collection represents a timely and ambitious survey of the affective turn in the social sciences. The first part of the reader reveals the importance the textual turn had for the affective turn to take place. Within the former turn, the universality of emotions was, at least, deeply challenged. The extracts in this part, mostly authored long before the affective turn took shape as such, reflect (on) the context of the textual turn in which "emotions came to be considered as discursive, dialogical phenomena, structured and influenced by the historical and cultural contingencies of communicational interactions" (p. 9). The three sections examine each of these features respectively: history, culture and society (mainly communicational interactions).