An emotional or affective turn? Historiography and Feelings

In what follows, I will begin by introducing the notion of an emotional turn as it has emerged over the past few decades in a variety of disciplines, and suggesting the historical and societal circumstances that, according to some scholars who investigated such development, may have facilitated it. I will subsequently focus on that orientation as it came to characterize the more specific area of historical studies, where reference has been alternatively made to an emotional or to an affective turn, not always understood and used as synonyms and mutually interchangeable. Finally, I will aim to assess the nature of this methodological shift, its depth and comprehensiveness, in relationship with other developments in recent historiography.