Neglected Emotions

Abstract

Given the importance of emotions in our everyday lives, it is no surprise that in recent decades the study of emotions has received tremendous attention by a number of different disciplines. Yet despite the many and great advantages that have been made in understanding the nature of emotions, there remains a class of emotional states that is understudied and that demands further elucidation. All contributions to this issue consider either emotions or aspects of emotions that deserve the label ‘neglected’. In doing so, they break new theoretical ground and further our understanding of the nature of the emotions that they consider. The aim of the present paper is to introduce the special issue on neglected emotions by articulating the different ways in which emotions can be said to be neglected.

How Many Emotions Does Film Studies Need?

“…For one, there is an overly strong focus on just a few standard or gardenvariety emotions fi lms can evoke in viewers, emotions like fear, sadness, disgust, or anger (see, for instance, Grodal 2017). Beyond this narrow spectrum we can surely discover a wide fi eld of emotions that have hitherto been neglected (Elpidorou 2020b). Here I am also thinking of emotions that are not directed at the narrative but at the fi lm-as-artifact (Ed Tan calls them A-emotions [1996]) and aesthetic emotions more broadly construed (for recent takes on aesthetic emotions, see Menninghaus et al 2019;Schindler et al 2017 or Fingerhut and Prinz 2020).…”