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Book Cover for: Emotions and the Letter: A History from Antiquity to the Present, Katie Barclay

Emotions and the Letter: A History from Antiquity to the Present

Katie Barclay

From hate mail to suicide notes to begging letters, this book explores the relationship between letter writing and emotion through case studies from antiquity to the 21st century. It shows how the epistolary form has offered a wide range of ways to communicate private feelings, make public statements and offers a rich historical source to explore how people have performed emotions for a range of audiences.

Emotions and the Letter shows how this long-standing historical source can provide insights into a diversity of emotion traditions in different periods. Uses of the letter in different periods and its emotional potential reflect important interactions between individuals and society, private and public, aesthetics and authenticity. Applying approaches and methods from the history of emotions, literary studies and affect studies this collection significantly advances our understanding of why letters remain such a critical mode of communication and shows how to analyse letters for historical emotions research.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
  • Publish Date: Jul 24th, 2025
  • Pages: 256
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.21in - 6.14in - 1.00in - 1.00lb
  • EAN: 9781350345157
  • Categories: Social History

About the Author

Barclay, Katie: - Katie Barclay is Professor and Future Fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney. She writes widely on the history of emotions, gender, and family life. With Kate De Luna and Giovanni Tarantino, she is the editor of Emotions: History, Culture, Society.
Stearns, Peter N.: -

Peter N. Stearns is Professor Emeritus in the Dept of History at George Mason University. His most recent publications include, as author, Cultural Change in Modern World History (Bloomsbury, 2018), Peacebuilding Through Dialogue (Virginia, 2018), Shame: A Brief History (Illinois, 2017), Sexuality in World History, Ed.II (Routledge, 2017), The Industrial Revolution in World History Ed.IV (Westview, 2016), Globalization in World History, Ed.II (Routledge, 2016), Childhood in World History, Ed.III (Routledge, 2016), The Industrial Turn in World History (Routledge, 2016), Gender in World History (Routledge, 2015), Debating the Industrial Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2015); and as editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World: 1750 to the Present (Oxford, 2008).

Peter N. Stearns is Provost of George Mason University, and teaches courses in world history and social history. Stearns is a past vice president of the American Historical Association, in charge of the Teaching Division. He currently serves as chair of the Advanced Placement World History committee, founded and continues to serve as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social History. Stearns is the author or editor of over 85 books.

Matt, Susan J.: - Susan J. Matt is Presidential Distinguished Professor of History at Weber State University, USA. She is author of Keeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 1890-1930 and Homesickness: An American History, and co-author with Luke Fernandez of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology from the Telegraph to Twitter. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Journal of American History.