Fay Bound Alberti

Despite 21st-century fears of a modern "epidemic" of loneliness, its history has been sorely neglected. A Biography of Loneliness is the first history of its kind to be published in English, offering a radically new interpretation of loneliness as an emotional language and experience. Usingletters and diaries, philosophical tracts, political discussions, and medical literature from the eighteenth century to the present, historian of the emotions Fay Bound Alberti argues that loneliness is not an ahistorical, universal phenomenon. It is, in fact, a modern emotion: before 1800, itslanguage did not exist.As Alberti shows, the birth of loneliness is linked to the development of modernity: the all-encompassing ideology of the individual that has emerged in the mind and physical sciences, in economic structures, in philosophy and politics. While it has a biography of its own, loneliness impacts onpeople differently, according to their gender, ethnicity, religion, outlook, and socio-economic position. It is, Alberti argues, not a single state but an "emotion cluster", composed of a wide variety of responses that include fear, anger, resentment and sorrow. In spite of this, loneliness is notalways negative. And it is physical as well as psychological: loneliness is a product of the body as much as the mind.Looking at informative case studies such as Sylvia Plath, Queen Victoria, and Virginia Woolf, A Biography of Loneliness charts the emergence of loneliness as a modern emotional state. From social media addiction to widowhood, from homelessness to the oldest old, from mall hauls to massages,loneliness appears in all aspects of 21st-century life. Yet we cannot address its meanings, let alone formulate a cure, without attention to its complex, protean history.

The History of an Emotion

A Biography of Loneliness

The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Across cultures it is seen as the site of emotions, as well as the origin of life. We feel emotions in the heart, from the heart-stopping sensation of romantic love to the crushing sensation of despair. And yet since the nineteenth century the heart has been redefined in medical terms as a pump, an organ responsible for the circulation of the blood. Emotions have been removed from the heart as an active site of influence and towards the brain. It is the brain that is the organ most commonly associated with emotion in the modern West. So why, then, do the emotional meanings of the heart linger? Why do many transplantation patients believe that the heart, for instance, can transmit memories and emotions and why do we still refer to emotions as 'heartfelt'? We cannot answer these questions without reference to the history of the heart as both physical organ and emotional symbol. Matters of the Heart traces the ways emotions have been understood between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries as both physical entities and spiritual experiences. With reference to historical interpretations of such key concepts as gender, emotion, subjectivity and the self, it also addresses the shifting relationship from heart to brain as competing centres of emotion in the West..

History, Medicine, and Emotion

Matters of the Heart

The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Across cultures it is seen as the site of emotions, as well as the origin of life. This book traces the ways emotions have been understood between the 17th and 19th centuries as both physical entities and spiritual experiences.

A pesar de que, lamentablemente, la soledad está en los últimos tiempos en boca de todos, hasta el punto de que se ha llegado a hablar de ella como una «epidemia moderna», es poco lo que sabemos sobre su historia y sus significados culturales. Una biografía de la soledad ofrece una nueva interpretación de esta emoción -o, en palabras de su autora, de este «cúmulo de emociones»- como experiencia y lenguaje emocional para desmontar la creencia común de que se trata de un fenómeno universal y atemporal. En su lugar, Bound Alberti demuestra a lo largo de estas páginas que su nacimiento está vinculado al desarrollo de la modernidad y tiene una biografía propia que va mutando en función de las biografías particulares a las que se adapta, fluctuando de acuerdo con el género, la clase o la etnia, entre otros factores. Si es cierto que la soledad, con sus profundas consecuencias para la salud mental, constituye uno de los grandes retos a los que deberemos hacer frente en este siglo, resulta necesario y urgente alcanzar un conocimiento profundo y directo de sus diversas manifestaciones y matices, pero sobre todo tomar conciencia de su ineludible carácter histórico.

Historia de una emoción

Una biografía de la soledad

Despite 21st-century fears of an 'epidemic' of loneliness, its history has been sorely neglected. A Biography of Loneliness offers a radically new interpretation of loneliness as an emotional language and experience. Using letters and diaries, philosophical tracts, political discussions, and medical literature from the eighteenth century to the present, historian of the emotions Fay Bound Alberti argues that loneliness is not an ahistorical, universal phenomenon. It is, in fact, a modern emotion: before 1800, its language did not exist. And where loneliness is identified, it is not always bad, but a complex emotional state that differs according to class, gender, ethnicity and experience. Looking at informative case studies such as Sylvia Plath, Queen Victoria, and Virginia Woolf, A Biography of Loneliness charts the emergence of loneliness as a modern and embodied emotional state.

The story of the body. Fay Bound Alberti takes the human body apart in order to put it back anew, telling the cultural history of our key organs and systems from the inside out, from blood to guts, brains to sex organs.

The Human Body in History and Culture

This Mortal Coil

Anne Marie Rafferty

Marguerite Dupree

Germs and governance brings together leading historians, practitioners and policy makers to consider the past, present and future of hospital infection control. Combining historical case-studies with practitioner experiences, this volume offers a new understanding of the emergence of theories of germ transmission and containment and how these theories played out in real-world environments, networks and professional organisations. Exploring the historical context in which technologies like gloves were developed and popularised, as well as how relationships between communities and hospitals, doctors and nurses, and the emerging role of hospital bacteriologists have shaped infection control practices, the collection emphasises the diverse contexts in which ideas about germs, infection and safety circulated. The volume also addresses the historical neglect of the critical role of nurses in the development and success of infection control measures.

Fay Bound Alberti

About

Books

Join the club