Annals of the Emotions

Feelings in history and culture

Peter Toohey Ph.D.

Don’t People Enjoy Reading Anymore?

The “American Time Use Survey” recently claimed that leisure reading is on a serious decline. Hokum? Or should we be worried?

Mental Illness – Seeing and Hearing from the Inside Out

Brad Necyk curates a photovoice exhibit from the Mathison Centre for Mental Health at the University of Calgary that shows the visual and audial experience of mental illness.

Are You Just Daydreaming - Or Is It Boredom?

Can you tell daydreaming from boredom? If you talk for a living it helps. Why? If an audience is daydreaming you can get them back with a joke, but if they’re bored you’re done

The Dead, Their Cell Phones, Jealousy, and Digital Wills

Sometimes people really think that they need information from the digital devices of their late relatives. I’m not kidding. Should they get it?

Shoe Shaming in the Strictest School in Britain

Merchants’ Academy was called the strictest school in Britain, a tough label for a good school. But Merchants’ may not make it easy for itself by using shame to enforce behavior.

Why Would Anyone Build Their Own Coffin?

In the remote Tasmanian town of Ulverstone there’s a community group who’ve taken to building their own coffins years before they need them. Why are they doing it?

Is Your Smartphone Really Giving You Head Lice?

New technologies are dangerous things. They encourage fear and alarm, especially if they're smartphones or tablets. It used to be like that with reading, too. But look at it now.

The End of Guilt

Has shame taken over from guilt as the marker of American culture? Or was guilt never very important in the first place?

Tired of Putting Things Off, and of Being Seen as a Bore?

“Another day gone. What are you going to do about it?” Is this what you want to know from your latest watch?

Do Cleaner Shrimp Get Jealous?

The jealous triangle is usually reckoned to be one on one, with the prize, say, a lover. But it’s not all sex, it’s not all one on one, and it’s not all humans.

Jealousy In Animals and Envy in Humans

Jealousy is usually said to be a character flaw in humans and in animals. But is it? Could learning to be jealous simply be the reflection of a normal character type?

Was Telesinia Crispinilla Killed by a Broken Heart?

Does culture shape the the way we experience emotions such as grief? Here's an example that's 2000 years old and one that shows the grief of a parent that's just like our own.

Love in Outer Space - Or Just in Your Head?

Water worlds? Kelper 62f? Stanislaw Lew’s sci-fi novel "Solaris" gave them a living angry mind. Tarkovsky’s and Steven Soderbergh’s psychological films saw it differently. Why?

Celebrating the Ordinary - The Advantages of Being Dull

Are you predictable, reliable, safe or just plain dull? Maybe there’s benefit in being boring?

Who’s in the Mirror?

Doubles and mirror images fascinate. Why? Maybe they echo a threat to our sense of self - from illness, physical damage, others too like us, even sexual and gender misalignment.

Maybe It’s Harder to Kill Yourself Than You Picture

Is thinking about suicide ever therapeutic?

Depressed and Looking Forward to the End of the World?

Good natured and bad tempered depressives, going to the movies with Lars von Trier, centaur planets, Saturn, being anxious, and the end of the world.

A Gourmand’s Guide to the Passionate Life

Making sense of the emotions with psychiatrist, writer, and drink-maker Neel Burton in his Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions (Acheron Press: 2015)

What’s Wrong with Ekaterina Demidova?

Should you feel proud rather than guilty that you’ve been depressed? Why would anyone be proud of being depressed? There are some positive answers to be found in art. They show depression could mean you’re creative and maybe clever too - but also better connected socially. Depression is a painful condition, but I’m not alone in reckoning that it offers some advantages.

What Do You Look Like When You’re Bored?

What does it look like to be bored, to be melancholy or depressed, or even just to be thinking? In photography, in art, and in real-life there are often striking similarities. There's usually a head-on-the-hand. But there are some differences and that's what I'll try to show you here. See if you can spot them at the next meeting you attend.

Play, Primates, Jealousy, Work, and Losing Deliberately

Gorillas like to play games and when they do, they sometimes lose deliberately. Why? “Self-handicapping” encourages their playmate to keep on with the game. Jealousy can be very like play—there are triangles, winners and losers, and feelings run high. This is very true of workplace jealousy. Does self-handicapping have a role to play in mitigating workplace jealousy?

Harming the Innocent to Punish the Guilty

There are three harrowing stories here, one modern concerning Katherine Knight, and two from Greek mythology concerning Procne and Atreus. Mental derangement, jealousy and resentment, and profoundly dysfunctional families are at the heart of the cannibalistic stories. They dramatize the harm that is inflicted on the innocent in order to punish the apparently guilty.

How Do You Feel if You Can't Read?

Real literacy rates in advanced economies are lower than you might expect. This reduces the accessibility of digital technology for many people whose literacy is not strong. The common claims that the Digital Revolution is changing the way people experience emotions – such as loneliness, love, jealousy, boredom - may need to be treated with considerable caution.

What Makes You Say You’re Lonely?

What does it mean to be lonely and how do say that you are lonely? Is language enough to describe it? Are you lonely just because you think you are lonely and say you are lonely? Or are specific circumstances required for there to be loneliness? What does loneliness mean for the animal and human brain? Is loneliness and the word “loneliness” common to all cultures?

Jealousy in Street Art

Does jealousy have a role in street art? Can it help to keep things fair?

Keeping Jealousy to Yourself

Can you keep jealousy to yourself? Or is it acted out, publicly, like a madman or a fool?

Painting Boredom in the Renaissance

In Turkey in the fourth century three bored young women are having trouble finding husbands. Their father can’t raise their dowry. So they stay endlessly on at home. Are they just bored or are they frightened?

You Are Not the Man I Married

Capgras Syndrome is a rare and fascinating illness. It's all about doubles and it has an unexpectedly long history, especially in literature, where it's often linked with jealousy. This idea of the double captures the crazy essence of jealousy. It mocks its logic.