Abstract
In her seminal study Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002), Mieke Bal takes a convincing case for more nuanced and exciting interdisciplinary cultural analysis and use of concepts, which travel across disciplines and cultures. My paper focuses on the challenges and possibilities of interdisciplinary emotion studies. More precisely, the goal of my paper is to show how a cultural-sensitive approach to emotions in literature can work as a methodological tool for analyzing embodied, spatially situated affects and moods both in characterization and readerly experience. Humanities scholars, in general, have emphasized the cultural dimension of emotions, which are expressed and verbalized in certain ways in certain cultures and regions (e.g. Wierzbicka 1999). In my paper, I approach the affective aspects of the imagined North (Chartier 2007) through a case study of Finnish literature written in Finnish, Swedish, and Sami languages. I argue that culture-specific emotions ask for translation of the whole emotional culture and cultural scripts rather than just emotion words or imageries. Cultural specificity and variability in emotional experience and meaning also influence the affective styles of literary texts and genres, which are approached in my study not only as globally traveling models, but also fundamentally local and environmental.
Presenters
Elise NykanenResearcher, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki, Etelä-Suomen lääni, Finland
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Culture-Specific Emotion, Emotion Studies, Imagined North, Affect, Mood, Embodied Experience
