Wahnich, Sophie

Indispensable revolutionary emotions - 2024.


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The subject of emotions during the Revolutionary period is a matter of the method of the historian, and the interpretation of Revolutionary events. In light of a political project that opens with the immediate validation of the sensitive man, and closes with his dismissal, this sequence questions the role of emotions not only in revolution, but also in democracy. The notion of emotional dynamics underscores the importance of not simply analyzing one emotion during the entire Revolutionary period, but rather identifying how certain emotions often follow one another in the same way. In this manner, we can propose a reading in terms of rhythm rather than emotional chaos. The question of political emotions makes it possible to analyze the way in which a society gives itself the possibility of its own emancipatory transformation or, conversely, of its own submission. In this respect, it affects social structures as much as representations, the forms of life as much as forms of law.