Books by Christian Bailey
Stanford University Press, Oct 21, 2022
This book explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German ... more This book explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities.
By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity.
Berghahn Books, Oct 21, 2022
Reviews in History, 2014
This book presents a cultural history of how emotions were defined and discussed in encyclopedias... more This book presents a cultural history of how emotions were defined and discussed in encyclopedias in German, French, and English since the late seventeenth century. As the book demonstrates, encyclopedias were not simply neutral transmitters of knowledge but served as moral arbiters to their readers, providing guidelines for the appropriate regulation and expression of emotions. These publications also participated in fundamental discussions on human nature, providing answers as to whether emotions are located in the mind or in the body, whether we can read each other’s emotions, whether men and women, children and adults, Western and non-Western peoples share the same emotions, and thus whether emotions are biologically determined by sex and race or differ according to culture and cultivation. Encyclopedias could thereby entrench or challenge gender differences and reinforce or undermine civilizing missions among other things. The reference works studied in this book form a relatively cohesive body of source material made up of 10,000 articles across 200 reference works in three languages. They were an important resource for the middle classes, distilling core aspects of the scientific discussion taking place in the academy for a broader reading public. As a result, these works provide a unique opportunity for charting continuity and change across European societies. In particular, they refracted the changing ways in which academic disciplines wielded authority in the cultural and political spheres—for instance, highlighting how definitions of emotions formulated by theologians and philosophers gave way in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to theories advanced by psychologists and neuroscientists. Emotions have today not simply become uncontroversial scientific facts, but continue to be a source of vibrant debates—debates that still move in and out of the pages of the encyclopedias.
Civilizing Emotions, 2015
Gefühle sind so alt wie die Menschheit. Aber was wissen wir über sie und welche Bedeutung messen ... more Gefühle sind so alt wie die Menschheit. Aber was wissen wir über sie und welche Bedeutung messen wir ihnen bei? In diesem Band werden wissenschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Debatten analysiert, die Europäer seit dem 18. Jahrhundert über Affekte, ...
Journal Articles by Christian Bailey
The Journal of Modern History
The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
This article asks why the concept of ‘Nächstenliebe’ or ‘love of neighbour’ became a source of co... more This article asks why the concept of ‘Nächstenliebe’ or ‘love of neighbour’ became a source of contestation between Jewish and Christian intellectuals between the fin-de-siècle and the First World War. For some Christian intellectuals, highlighting differences between an apparently more expansive Christian love of neighbour and an allegedly narrower Jewish conception could provide a novel means of questioning how fully Jews could belong as members of German society. As the article shows, Jewish intellectuals did not simply seek to counter those definitions that claimed a moral superiority for Christian Nächstenliebe, however. Some went further and argued that Jewish ideas of neighbourly love were actually the more cosmopolitan, in contrast to Christian conceptions that had become increasingly self-serving and sectarian. In some instances, these Jewish intellectuals used such arguments about love of neighbour to make the case for Zionism. The article then investigates how the First W...
Contemporary European History
‘What exactly is the history of emotions?’ This question, often still encountered by historians w... more ‘What exactly is the history of emotions?’ This question, often still encountered by historians working in the field, suggests that the history of emotions is difficult to understand yet hard to ignore. Historians active in other areas may have noticed the recent founding (and funding) of emotions research centres by Queen Mary, University of London, the Max Planck Society and the Australian Research Council. Yet the emergence of a critical mass of emotions researchers has not altogether dispelled concerns that emotions are not really accessible to the historian or worthy of sustained and serious consideration. Even a pioneer of the once dubious field of cultural history such as Peter Burke has wondered about the history of emotions’ viability while recognising its promise. As he sees it, if historians regard emotions as stable across time (and thus pre-cultural, it seems) then all they can do is chart changing attitudes to these constant emotions. This leaves historians writing intellectual history but not the history of emotions. If historians, by contrast, treat emotions as historically variable then they may deliver more innovative work, but they may also end up struggling to find evidence for their conclusions. Taking anxiety as an example, Burke asks pointedly how ‘could a historian possibly find evidence to establish’ whether people were more anxious in a given historical period than another, rather than simply being affected by different anxieties. The books under review here represent the latest generation of historians’ efforts to answer Burke's questions and examine whether and how fundamental changes in the history of emotions can be charted.
Contemporary European History
This article reassesses Willy Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik of the 1970s. It does so by linking Br... more This article reassesses Willy Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik of the 1970s. It does so by linking Brandt's policy initiative to earlier German Social Democratic plans to integrate Europe that had existed since the 1920s. The analysis suggests that Brandt's attempt to mediate between the West and the East in the 1970s revived earlier SPD policies to integrate Central European societies that had been divided after the world wars. Continuities between Social Democratic thought and practice are therefore highlighted – continuities that are usually overlooked in narratives that have stressed how dramatically German Social Democracy shifted from the interwar to the Cold War eras.
German History, 2010
... Furthermore, in their endeavours to limit the power of political parties, the Allied Forces w... more ... Furthermore, in their endeavours to limit the power of political parties, the Allied Forces were aided by South German Ministerpräsidents such as Wilhelm Hoegner, who welcomed the federalist reforms proposed by the Occupation leaders as a means of limiting the power of ...
Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 2010
2004년 동유럽10개국을 새롭게 회원국으로 받아들여 그 규모가 확대 된유럽연합의 지도자 중 독일의 헬무트 콜 수상은 유럽통합의 역사적 의미에대해 대규모전쟁이 재현되지 않고,... more 2004년 동유럽10개국을 새롭게 회원국으로 받아들여 그 규모가 확대 된유럽연합의 지도자 중 독일의 헬무트 콜 수상은 유럽통합의 역사적 의미에대해 대규모전쟁이 재현되지 않고, 그러기 위해 서로가 군대를 보유하지 않기 위한 노력이 결실을 맺은 것이며, 이것이 통합된 유럽의 가장 중 요한 존재이유라고 언급 하였다. 또한 이탈리아 수상인 로마노 프로디도 통합유럽을 위한 움직임이 유럽이 전쟁으로부터 평화로 옮겨가기 위해 분열에서 통합으로 나아가고 있는 것이라고 묘사하였다. 유럽통합의 정신은 평화를 추구하기 위한 노력의 소산이며, 전쟁과 이에 상응하는 갈등이 해소된 평화로운 유럽의 지향한다. 통합된 유럽은 2차대전 이후 분열된 유럽의 이상적인모델이며, 특히 동유럽 국가들에게 있어서 통합유럽의 일원이 된다는 것은그들의 ‘잃어버린’ 정체성을 회복시켜주는 ‘역사적 정상화’의 의미이다. 따라서 통합 된 유럽은 그 의미에 있어 분열과 대립, 국민국가, 민족주의라는기존의 개념을 타파한다. 오랫동안 유럽 통합의 역사에서 국민국가가 그 출발점으로 간주되어왔다. 이러한 관점은 개별 단위의 국가사에는 유효할 지모르나, 통합된 유럽의 정신, 혹은 역사성을 규정 하는 데는 적합하지 못하다. 따라서 이러한 단위사의 한계를 넘어가는 초국가적 역사로 이러한 현상을 바라봐야 하는 필요성과 당위성이 제기된다. 유럽의 통합을 위한 가장 영향력 있는 초기의 역사가들은 20세기 중반부터 강력하게 대두된 초국가적역사학자 그룹의 중요성을 강조한다. 특히 발터 립겐스는 초국가적 역사서 바라는 이민자들이 하나의 동맹체를 이루고자 하는 열망이 강하다는 것에초점을 맞추어 통합의 초국가적 역사성을 조명하고 있다. 이러한 연구는 밀워드, 프레버트, 겔러, 카이저 등에 의해 계승되어 초국가주의 혹은 초민족주의라는 개념으로 등장하기도하였다. 이러한 연구는 통합유럽연구에 있어초국가주의의 유효성과 적실성을 드러내고 있으며, 방법론상로도 옳은 방식이라 할 수 있다. 초국가적 접근방식은 유럽통합의 방향에 대한 새로운 가능성...
Book Chapters by Christian Bailey
Europeanization in the Twentieth Century, 2010
Continuity and Change in the Vocabulary of Feeling 1700-2000, 2014
Emotionen, 2019
Most historians agree that the fin-de-siecle was a transformative period for the study of emotion... more Most historians agree that the fin-de-siecle was a transformative period for the study of emotion. Some regard the late nineteenth century as a ‘Golden Age’ for emotions research that was then followed by a return to the ‘Dark Ages’ brought about by the rise of behaviorism (cf. Gendron/Barrett 2009; Gendron and Barrett challenge this view, highlighting the glut of work published on emotions between 1900 and 1960, cf. ibid., 317). Others, such as Ute Frevert view the period as a second Sattelzeit, during which time scientific and secular theories eventually but decisively supplanted theological and philosophical explanations (cf. Frevert 2014, 10–11).
Uploads
Books by Christian Bailey
By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity.
Journal Articles by Christian Bailey
Book Chapters by Christian Bailey
By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity.