A Reformation of Tears: Christianity and the Invention of Modern Emotions

Abstract

This project explores the contribution of medieval and early modern Christianity to the emergence of modern Western emotional norms. Where do we get our ideas about what constitutes an emotion, which emotions are appropriate or moral, or whether they are useful to the conduct of our everyday lives? This dissertation suggests that Christian debates over the nature of God were central to the development of how we have come to categorize and describe our feelings; at the same time, the evolution of ideas about human emotion caused profound changes in the way God himself was imagined, and was crucial to the emergence of God as an empathetic figure.