This unique volume brings together state-of-the-art research showing the value of emotions that many believe to be undesirable. Leading investigators explore the functions and benefits of sadness, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, shame, guilt, jealousy, and envy. The role of these emotions in social interactions and relationships is examined, as are cultural differences in how they are valued and expressed. The volume considers how people seek out these feelings in everyday life to improve performance, gain insight, and express cares and commitments. Negative emotions are shown to have an important place in a rich and meaningful life.

Envy, irritation, paranoia—in contrast to powerful and dynamic negative emotions like anger, these non-cathartic states of feeling are associated with situations in which action is blocked or suspended. In her examination of the cultural forms to which these affects give rise, Sianne Ngai suggests that these minor and more politically ambiguous feelings become all the more suited for diagnosing the character of late modernity. Along with her inquiry into the aesthetics of unprestigious negative affects such as irritation, envy, and disgust, Ngai examines a racialized affect called “animatedness,” and a paradoxical synthesis of shock and boredom called “stuplimity.” She explores the politically equivocal work of these affective concepts in the cultural contexts where they seem most at stake, from academic feminist debates to the Harlem Renaissance, from late-twentieth-century American poetry to Hollywood film and network television. Through readings of Herman Melville, Nella Larsen, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Hitchcock, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Ellison, John Yau, and Bruce Andrews, among others, Ngai shows how art turns to ugly feelings as a site for interrogating its own suspended agency in the affirmative culture of a market society, where art is tolerated as essentially unthreatening. Ngai mobilizes the aesthetics of ugly feelings to investigate not only ideological and representational dilemmas in literature—with a particular focus on those inflected by gender and race—but also blind spots in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. Her work maps a major intersection of literary studies, media and cultural studies, feminist studies, and aesthetic theory.

Argues that the medicalisation of negative emotions is reshaping our ability to act politically This book explores negative emotions like anger, fear and grief as important drivers of political action. It examines how treating these feelings as medical problems affects society. Drawing on the political thought of Hannah Arendt, the book develops an original understanding of political emotions as fragile and vulnerable to attacks disputing their relevance to public life. It presents and analyses four case studies of emotional politics in the UK, ranging from assertions that UKIP supporters were emotionally primitive to diagnoses of anxiety disorder in the Brexit referendum's aftermath. It demonstrates how ideas of emotion and mental disorder might be used to both empower and disempower people politically. Dan Degerman is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol.

Drawing on years of scientific research and a wide array of real-life examples including sports, the military, parenting, education, relationships, business, and more, 'The Power of Negative Emotion' is a refreshing reality check against the constant exhortations to be mindful and think positively.

Emotions work to define who we are as well as shape what we do and this is no more powerfully at play than in the world of politics. Ahmed considers how emotions keep us invested in relationships of power, and also shows how this use of emotion could be crucial to areas such as feminist and queer politics. Debates on international terrorism, asylum and migration, as well as reconciliation and reparation, are explored through topical case studies. In this book the difficult issues are confronted head on. The Cultural Politics of Emotion is in dialogue with recent literature on emotions within gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Throughout the book, Ahmed develops a theory of how emotions work, and the effects they have on our day-to-day lives. New for this editionA substantial 15,000-word Afterword on 'Emotions and Their Objects' which provides an original contribution to the burgeoning field of affect studiesA revised BibliographyUpdated throughout.

This authoritative handbook reviews the breadth of current knowledge about positive emotions: their nature, functions, and consequences for individuals and society. Specific emotions are analyzed in depth, including happiness, pride, romantic love, compassion, gratitude, awe, challenge, and hope. Major theoretical perspectives are presented and cutting-edge research methods explained. The volume addresses neurobiological and physiological aspects of positive emotions as well as their social and intrapersonal contexts. Implications for physical health, coping, and psychopathology are explored, as are connections to organizational functioning and consumer behavior.

As part of the study of emotions and politics, this book explores connections between affect and cognition and their implications for political evaluation, decision and action. Emphasizing theory, methodology and empirical research, Feeling Politics is an important contribution to political science, sociology, psychology and communications.

The Political Sociology of Emotions articulates the political sociology of emotions as a sub-field of emotions sociology in relation to cognate disciplines and sub-disciplines. Far from reducing politics to affectivity, the political sociology of emotions is coterminous with political sociology itself plus the emotive angle added in the investigation of its traditional and more recent areas of research. The worldwide predominance of affective anti-politics (e.g., the securitization of immigration policies, reactionism, terrorism, competitive authoritarianism, nationalism and populism, etc.) makes the political sociology of emotions increasingly necessary in making the prospects of democracy and republicanism in the twenty-first century more intelligible. Through a weak constructionist theoretical perspective, the book shows the utility of this new sub-field by addressing two central themes: trauma and ressentiment. Trauma is considered as a key cultural-political phenomenon of our times, evoking both negative and positive emotions; ressentiment is a pertaining individual and collective political emotion allied to insecurities and moral injuries. In tandem, they constitute fundamental experiences of late modern times. The value of the political sociology of emotions is revealed in the analysis of civil wars, cultural traumas, the politics of pity, the suffering of distant others in the media, populism, and national identities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Emotions have long been neglected in media research, although their role is a vital ingredient in shaping our shared stories and the ways we engage with them. But emotions, as they circulate through the media, can also be divisive and exclusionary. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen makes the case for researching the role of emotions in mediated politics. Drawing on a series of studies, she explores the complex relationship between emotions, politics and media. The book includes analyses of how Facebook structures emotional reactions; the anger of Donald Trump; the use of personal storytelling in feminist Twitter hashtags; the role of emotionality in award-winning journalism; and the communities created by political fandoms. Essential reading for scholars and students, this important volume opens up new ways of thinking about and researching emotions, media and politics.