Ludic emotions

The study of the ludic cultures of the past and the history of emotions offer many areas of potential overlapping and cross-fertilisation: from the passions that attract humans to all sort of play and accompany their practice, to the role moralists and physicians, among others, may attribute to play as a factor in balancing or unbalancing the usually recommended affective stability, up to the devising of particular forms of entertainment (of oneself or others) almost entirely for the purpose of enhancing or taming people’s emotions – as with the case of some genres of music and theatre, for instance. The two fields do not seem, however, to have so far fulfilled such potential to a significant and visible degree: with a few exceptions, the affective side of play is given a marginal role in ludic research; and play occupies a minor portion of the attention of historians of emotions. In conceiving this monographic issue of Ludica, our intention has been to build a bridge, that is, to draw attention to a now necessary interweaving between the history of play and games and the history of emotions. The chronological spectrum over which this reflection extends is that of early modernity in the broadest sense, a period which also witnessed a growing awareness of leisure, and which may therefore offer the possibility of identifying relevant sources for intellectual and cultural history in relation to the notions of games and emotions.