Abstract:

This article discusses the historiography of emotions in the history of education with an emphasis on some emerging approaches and promising directions in the field in the last decade. The first section of the article deals with the paradigm shift of emotional regulation treated by historians of education. For much of the twentieth century, a “hydraulic” conceptualization of emotions as liquids and pressures that “build up” and must be accommodated dominated the ways historians address emotions. Therefore, emotional regulation has long been a theme in educational history of emotions, much of which can be characterized by a “governmentality studies”. And studies of emotional behavior in schools have typically focused on the affective behaviors. The second section offers an introduction of the concept of affect and the emergence of affective histories. An affective turn had been popular since the late 1890s, which had considerable effect on humanities, historical studies in particular. Though the examinationof social norms and desired affective behaviors remain at the core of much research in the history of education, historians of education are increasingly contextualizing their work in a broader history of affect. Affect is not reduced to emotion. The article argues that affective turn can help understand the history of education from three key aspects. The final section explores the effect of the latest studies on consciousness and choice making in current neuroscienceas well as an increased attention to practices of embodiment can have on the history of education. Focus on the body can be seen as a bridge between the studies of affect and those of emotional regulation. To grapple with the problems with the historical study of human body, this paper argues that we need to move from affective histories to histories of the emotions. In developing a better understanding of the body rather than considering it as organism/self/subject, it’s necessary to explore the developments in cognitive neuroscience and psychology concerninghow human brain works. What we are beginning to learn about the similarities and differences in how the brain relates to its own body and how it relates to the outside world, together with our understanding of how humans make choices, help to have a profound impact on historical studies. For historians of education working on the history of emotion and affect, a new understanding of human consciousness will have an effect on how we understand human agency.

Key words: history of affect, history of emotion, body transformation