How to treat emotions by the historical studies: A case study of the history of curse words

Abstract

This article deals with the question of how historical science can treat and/or analyze emotions. The importance of historical research written in the 1930s, which focused on the “relationship between mind and body,” is introduced at the outset. I then provide an overview of other academic disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy and see how they treat emotion, specifically “fear.” This first part clarifies what historical science can do in terms of analyzing emotions. In the next section， I discuss the history of emotions and curse words. Using dictionaries like Deutsches Schimpfwörterbuch oder die Schimpfwörter der Deutschen (1839) and the Brothers Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch (1838–) as well as documents written by university students, I identify the curse words used in Germany in the 19th century. If these vulgarities were exchanged between students and/or young craftsmen, semi-fatal duels or brawls took place, which allows one to reconstruct the various emotions in the “emotional communities”. I conclude this paper by arguing that the moral values of the modern German society were reflected in the curse words of the time.