ABSTRACT
Scholars working in the humanities and social sciences have recently developed a range of concepts and frameworks broadly related to the study of human emotions. Some have gone so far as to label this as a “turn to emotions,” or an “aff ective turn,” thereby suggesting a profound and wideranging reshaping of disciplines and approaches similar to that wrought by the textual or linguistic turn that began in the 1970s.1 Indeed if the linguistic turn represents our acknowledgment that language helps to constitute reality, then an aff ective turn implies that emotions have a similarly fundamental role in human experience. Accordingly, this collection of scholarly essays responds to the multidisciplinary shift in focus towards the emotions.
