Tiffany Watt Smith

Baskasinin Talihsizliginden Duyulan Keyif

Schadenfreude

An entertaining and insightful exploration of schadenfreude: the deliciously dark and complex joy we've all felt, from time to time, at news of others' misfortunes. We're all familiar with the twinge of joy we sometimes feel at news of someone else's misfortune. Try as we might to ignore or suppress it, we can't help but feel the hint of a smile when our "perfect" coworker gets chewed out by the boss, or our friend's fairytale marriage hits a rough patch. The Germans named this furtive delight in another's misfortune schadenfreude (from schaden damage, and freude, joy), and it has perplexed philosophers and psychologists for centuries. Why can it be so satisfying to witness another's distress? And what, if anything, should we do about it? Schadenfreude illuminates this hidden emotion, inviting readers to reflect on its pleasures, and how we use other people's miseries to feel better about ourselves. Written in an exploratory, evocative form, it weaves examples from literature, philosophy, film, and music together with personal observation and historical and cultural analysis. And in today's world of polarized politics, twitter trolls and "sidebars of shame," it couldn't be timelier. Engaging, insightful, and entertaining, Schadenfreude makes the case for thinking afresh about the role this much-maligned emotion plays in our lives -- perhaps even embracing it.

The Joy of Another's Misfortune

156 emociones que has sentido, que no sabes si has sentido o que nunca sentirás

Atlas de las emociones humanas

Duygular Sözlügü Acimadan Zevklenmeye

Siamo tutti in grado di riconoscere la differenza tra rabbia e paura, tra desiderio e invidia. Sappiamo anche che è meglio non confondere l’affetto con l’amore, il rimpianto con il rimorso, l’euforia con la felicità. Quello di cui non ci rendiamo conto, però, è che lo spettro delle emozioni umane è ancora più sfumato di così: esistono sensazioni che tutti noi abbiamo provato, stati d’animo molto precisi e inconfondibili, e a cui però spesso non abbiamo saputo dare un nome. Eppure in qualche angolo del mondo, in qualche lingua a noi ignota esiste una parola che li definisce: per esempio, solo gli inuit chiamano iktsuarpok il miscuglio di ansia, nervosismo, eccitazione e felicità che prova chi aspetta l’arrivo di ospiti a casa, o la risposta a una mail importante; per i finlandesi, kaukokaipuu è l’inspiegabile nostalgia per un posto dove non siamo mai stati; gli spagnoli chiamano vergüenza ajena l’imbarazzo empatico di chi assiste alle figuracce altrui. Tiffany Watt Smith attraversa storia, antropologia, scienza, arte, letteratura e musica in cerca delle espressioni con cui le culture di tutto il mondo hanno imparato a definire le proprie emozioni, e nel frattempo ci rivela come siano complesse e sorprendenti anche quelle che credevamo di conoscere bene. Di parola in parola veniamo risucchiati nel caleidoscopio di questo libro divertente, colto e curioso, metà enciclopedia e metà atlante, che mentre mappa le differenze affettive tra i popoli ci ricorda che proprio nell’universalità di ciò che proviamo ci scopriamo uguali. «Ogni emozione è una categoria di storie in cui riversare la propria esperienza personale» - la Repubblica «“Tu chiamale, se vuoi, emozioni”, cantava Battisti. Per dare un nome alle sue sensazioni avrebbe avuto bisogno di questo libro» - Laura Pezzino, Vanity Fair

156 emozioni che hai provato, che non sai di aver provato, che non proverai mai

Atlante delle emozioni umane

Thérèse Vandling

Box of Emotions

A thoughtful, gleeful encyclopedia of emotions, both broad and outrageously specific, from throughout history and around the world. How do you feel today? Is your heart fluttering in anticipation? Your stomach tight with nerves? Are you falling in love? Feeling a bit miffed? Do you have the heebie-jeebies? Are you antsy with iktsuarpok or filled with nakhes? Recent research suggests there are only six basic emotions. But if that makes you feel uneasy, suspicious, and maybe even a little bereft, The Book of Human Emotions is for you. In this unique book, you'll get to travel across the world and through time, learning how different cultures have articulated the human experience and picking up some fascinating new knowledge about yourself along the way. From the familiar (anger) to the foreign (zal), each entertaining and informative alphabetical entry reveals the surprising connections and fascinating facts behind our emotional lives. Whether you're in search of the perfect word to sum up that cozy feeling you get from being inside on a cold winter's night, surrounded by friends and good food (what the Dutch call gezelligheid), or wondering how nostalgia evolved from a fatal illness to enjoyable self-indulgence, Tiffany Watt Smith draws on history, anthropology, science, art, literature, music, and popular culture to find the answers. In reading The Book of Human Emotions, you'll discover feelings you never knew you had (like basorexia, the sudden urge to kiss someone) and gain unexpected insights into why you feel the way you do. Besides, aren't you curious what nginyiwarrarringu means?

From Ambiguphobia to Umpty -- 154 Words from Around the World for How We Feel

The Book of Human Emotions

Atlante delle emozioni umane. 156 emozioni che hai provato, che non sai di aver provato, che non proverai mai

A smart and thought-provoking memoir, history, and cultural critique about the turmoil and complexity of female friendship Our culture today is inundated with narratives about the strength of female friendship, whether through images of girl power, BFFs, or work wives. Yet cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith has always found her own life much messier. She has had dramatic friend breakups, friendships that felt like too much or not enough, friendships that drifted into silence, and friendships built on convenience rather than a meeting of minds. And there are older cultural scripts to contend with: the competitive rival, the jealous backstabber, the underminer, the fair-weather friend. We have all been bad friends. It’s impossible to be a perfect one; as Watt Smith points out, women’s friendships have long been magnified, scrutinized, praised, and admonished, creating a legacy of impossible ideals. In Bad Friend, Watt Smith reflects on her own experience and thoroughly mines the rich cultural history of female friendship to look for a new paradigm that might encompass the struggles along with the joy.

How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship

Bad Friend

While the end of the nineteenth century is often associated with the rise of objectivity and its ideal of a restrained observer, scientific experiments continued to create emotional, even theatrical, relationships between scientist and his subject. On Flinching focuses on moments in which scientific observers flinched from sudden noises, winced at the sight of an animal's pain or cringed when he was caught looking, as ways to consider a distinctive motif of passionate and gestured looking in the laboratory and beyond. It was not their laboratory machines who these scientific observers most closely resembled, but the self-consciously emotional theatrical audiences of the period. Tiffany Watt-Smith offers close readings of four experiments performed by the naturalist Charles Darwin, the physiologist David Ferrier, the neurologist Henry Head, and the psychologist Arthur Hurst. Bringing together flinching scientific observers with actors and spectators in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century theatre, it places the history of scientific looking in its wider cultural context, arguing that even at the dawn of objectivity the techniques and problems of the stage continued to haunt scientific life. In turn, it suggests that by exploring the ways recoiling, shrinking and wincing becoming paradigmatic spectatorial gestures in this period, we can understand the ways Victorians thought about looking as itself an emotional and gestured performance.

Theatricality and Scientific Looking from Darwin to Shell Shock

On Flinching

Vous vous apprêtez à ouvrir ce livre : ressentez-vous de l’impatience, de la joie ? De la culpabilité, parce que vous êtes déjà en retard ? Ou cherchez-vous juste à mettre un mot sur un sentiment qui vous échappe...Nos émotions sont façonnées par notre corps et notre esprit, mais aussi par le contexte historique et culturel. Et les mots que nous utilisons pour les nommer influent sur la manière dont nous les vivons. Tiffany Watt Smith nous emmène à la découverte de notre intelligence émotionnelle à travers un inventaire de 154 émotions – familières (tristesse, amour, colère), émergentes (basorexie, technostress, ringxiety) ou empruntées à d’autres cultures (awumbuk, schadenfreude, mono no aware). En convoquant la psychologie, la philosophie, l’anthropologie, la petite et la grande Histoire, et autant d’anecdotes lumineuses – on apprendra comment l’ennui a été inventé au XIXe siècle ou pourquoi les présidents américains se sont mis, un beau jour, à sourire sur leurs portraits officiels —, Tiffany Watt Smith dévoile les forces étranges de notre monde intérieur.

Tiffany Watt Smith

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