"Circulating Passions: Knowing and doing emotions in 17th century China"

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Angelika Messner
• Subject Area: Asian Studies ; History of Science
• Term: from 2015 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 275742991

The history of emotions in the Chinese context is still far from being a well-defined field of research. It is generally recognized however that the emotion lexicon differed in terms of time and place, as well as in terms of ideospheres, and that emotions are differently perceived and conceptualized in aesthetic, philosophical, ethical and medical contexts. As a result, questions of whether China knew about psychology or not, or whether individual inner states of being have conceptualized or not remain largely unanswered. What is extremely missing, are microscopic-like close readings of texts that refer to everyday experiences and related practices. This is what this book is about: emotions, feelings and moods, as were textualized in medical writings during a period of significant upheaval and experiences of contingency in the 17th century. Spatially, the investigated texts stem from the Jiangnan macro-region. Qing ("feeling, emotion, passion, love, affection, situational sensitivity") appears in 16th and 17th centuries' literary writings as outstanding feature of intrinsically human beings, as natural and necessary expression of human existence. Based on the idea of humanism, subjectivism and individualism scholars sought the comparison with the European enlightenment, because here too subjective feelings apply criticism of prevailing norms as justifications for making change. Coined as the "cult of emotions", the semantics of the terms regarding "love, feeling, emotion" however vary in diachronic as much as in synchronous perspective. With a strong concern for terms that transport meanings of emotions and sensitivities this book demonstrates how the ambitious goal exploring, describing and analyzing emotions within a determined time-place-relation can be achieved in a highly transparent way. This being the foundational ground for the multi-level analysis of medical, literary and philosophical views the focus is on anger, fear, pain, depression or deep dejection, happiness, yearning and shame, since these emotions appear most prominently in the medical texts of the time. They do not appear as private soul-states, but rather as performed processes within the entrails either as pulsating currents or as knotted thoughts, or as blazing fire. Moreover, these circulating emotions simultaneously appear as circulating powers in the social space. When the emotions and passions pulsate too excessively to the extent of stagnation and circulation will stop, physicians come into play, and they carefully described the various pathological manifestations of emotion processes. This book refrains from any haste abstraction and generalization, and looks at particularities that lead to explore the very conjunctions between the social space and the body.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants