This conference stems from a paradox. Emotions and feelings are at the heart of individuals' lives and at the core of most of their cultural and leisure activities – indeed, they are major themes in the books we read, in the movies and TV series we watch, and they lay at the core of the effects produced by the consumption of our favorite works of fiction. However, few researchers have investigated the place of emotion in culture and the role they play within it. In France, with the exception of a few studies (Chedaleux et al., Hennion, Pasquier, Levaretto, etc.) and of “oblique references” in numerous other sociology of culture works (Glévarec, Mauger, Poliak & Pudal, Octobre et al., Péquignot, etc.), these two objects have often been analyzed independently within other specialized fields, by researchers who had little to no knowledge of each others' work (indeed, this object is at the crossroads of psychology, sociology, philosophy, etc.). They applied the analytical framework of feelings and emotions to “dominated” audiences (such as women or children). This trait is all the more startling compared to the English speaking world, where many studies take feelings and emotions as a research topic per se. The studies of fan cultures and reception produced in the field of cultural studies, which have rarely been translated into French, are a case in point. (Ang, Bobo, Brown, Corsaro, Hobson, Jenkins, McRobbie, Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, Radway, Skeggs & Wood, etc.). Similarly, the question of emotions and feelings is central in some works conducted in Asia, particularly those published in Culture & Empathy.Emotions and feelings are also mobilized as a central stake in some analyses of global neoliberalism (Cabanas & Illouz). Nonetheless, some fields of the social sciences in France (history and political science in particular) have been paying more and more attention to emotions and feelings; as for sociology, however, these concerns have yet to spread outside the boundaries of the sociology of labour. It might prove fruitful to open up a dialogue between the French sociology of culture and theseEnglish speaking researches or works focusing on different objects, in particular when they tackle shared issues, such as legitimacy (legitimate/illegitimate products; working class/middle class readings), acquisition of taste, the speakable and the unspeakable, socially situated emotional discipline, etc.
The purpose of this conference is to theoretically and empirically investigate the reciprocal links between culture on one side and feelings or emotions on the other. More precisely, we shall simultaneously consider two ranges of questions. How do cultural practices, objects and taste affect feelings and emotions, how do they shape, rework or even frame them by propagating specific rules or norms – depending on the social properties of individuals and the contexts in which they evolve? Conversely, what effect do emotions have on the cultural repertoires of individuals, and particularly on the formation of likes and dislikes for specific works, practices, uses, registers or activities? In other words, our aim is to study both socialization to emotions (through culture) and socialization to culture (through emotions).
