Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T10:55:37.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - The Cultural Brain as Historical Artifact

from Part II - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Rob Boddice
Edited by
Laurence J. Kirmayer ,
Carol M. Worthman ,
Shinobu Kitayama ,
Robert Lemelson  and
Constance A. Cummings
Laurence J. Kirmayer
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Carol M. Worthman
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Shinobu Kitayama
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Robert Lemelson
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Constance A. Cummings
Affiliation:
The Foundation for Psychocultural Research
Get access

Summary

It has become manifest across the biological sciences that culture is a dynamic component of human brain–body formation and experience. Culture is essential to understanding questions of neuroplasticity, emotional development, interoception, epigenetics, predictive coding, facial recognition, empathy, and so on, yet culture itself is often reduced by those sciences that have come to depend on it. It is "the exterior," or it is "input." The "world," insofar as it introduces contingency to what it is to be human, is not in itself understood as contingent. What happens when culture – both a cause and an effect of human formation – is itself situated, disrupted, historicized? Historians hold the keys to a radical interdisciplinary engagement that complicates the question of culture in ways complementary to the biological disruption of interiority. The cultural brain is an historical artefact. Acknowledging this should change the kinds of questions asked by those who study the brain.

Keywords

history of emotionshistory of experiencecultural contingencybiocultural historysensory history
Type
Chapter
Information
Culture, Mind, and Brain
Emerging Concepts, Models, and Applications
 , pp. 367 - 374
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, M., & Tsakiris, M. (2018). The body as first prior: Interoceptive predictive processing and the primacy of self–models. In Tsakiris, M. & De Preester, H. (Eds.), The interoceptive mind: From homeostasis to awareness (pp. 27–45). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198811930.003.0002Google Scholar
Barrett, L. F. (2006a). Are emotions natural kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(1), 28–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00003.xGoogle Scholar
Barrett, L. F. (2006b). Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(1), 20–46. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1001_2Google Scholar
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Boddice, R. (Ed.). (2014). Pain and emotion in modern history. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137372437CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boddice, R. (2016). The science of sympathy: Morality, evolution and Victorian civilization. University of Illinois Press. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1hfr069Google Scholar
Boddice, R. (2018a). The history of emotions. Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Boddice, R. (with Smail, Daniel Lord). (2018b). Neurohistory. In Tamm, M. & Burke, P. (Eds.), Debating new approaches to history (pp. 301–25). Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Boddice, R. (2019). A history of feelings. Reaktion Books Ltd.Google Scholar
Boddice, R., & Smith, M. (2020). Emotion, sense, experience. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourke, J. (2005). Fear: A cultural history. Virago.Google Scholar
Bourke, J. (2014). The story of pain: From prayer to painkillers. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burman, J. T. (2012). History from within? Contextualizing the new neurohistory and seeking its methods. History of Psychology, 15(1), 84–99. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023500CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, E. (2009). The modulated scream: Pain in late medieval culture. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, T. (2003). From passions to emotions: The creation of a secular psychological category. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eustace, N. (2008). Passion is the gale: Emotion, power, and the coming of the American Revolution. University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Febvre, L. (1941). La sensibilité et l’histoire: Comment reconstituer la vie affective d’autrefois? Annales D’histoire Sociale (1939–1941), 3(1–2), 5–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27574143Google Scholar
Febvre, L. (1992). Une vue d’ensemble: Histoire et psychologie. In Toussaint, R. & Simonet, J.-M. (Eds.), Combats pour l’histoire (pp. 207–20). Armand Colin. (Original work published 1938)Google Scholar
Frevert, U. (2011). Emotions in history: Lost and found. Central European University Press. www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt1281z9Google Scholar
Geroulanos, S., & Meyers, T. (2018). The human body in the age of catastrophe: Brittleness, integration, science and the Great War. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gross, D. M. (2006). The secret history of emotion: From Aristotle’s rhetoric to modern brain science. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoemann, K., Xu, F., & Barrett, L. F. (2019). Emotion words, emotion concepts, and emotional development in children: A constructionist hypothesis. Developmental Psychology, 55(9), 1830–49. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000686Google Scholar
Lanzoni, S. (2018). Empathy: A history. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Leder, D. (2018). Inside insight: A phenomenology of interoception. In Tsakiris, M. & De Preester, H. (Eds.), The interoceptive mind: From homeostasis to awareness (pp. 307–22). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198811930.003.0017Google Scholar
Lock, M., & Kaufert, P. (2001). Menopause, local biologies, and cultures of aging. American Journal of Human Biology, 13(4), 494–504. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.1081Google Scholar
Lock, M., & Palsson, G. (2016). Can science resolve the nature/nurture debate? Polity Press.Google Scholar
McGrath, L. S. (2017). Historiography, affect, and the neurosciences. History of Psychology, 20(2), 129–47. https://doi.org/10.1037/hop0000047Google Scholar
Meloni, M. (2016). Political biology: Science and social values in human heredity from eugenics to epigenetics. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377722Google Scholar
Moscoso, J. (2012). Pain: A cultural history (Thomas, S. & House, P., Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284235Google Scholar
Plamper, J. (2015). The history of emotions: An introduction (Tribe, K., Trans.). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Reckwitz, A. (2012). Affective spaces: A praxeological outlook. Rethinking History, 16(2), 241–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2012.681193Google Scholar
Reddy, W. M. (1997). Against constructionism: The historical ethnography of emotions. Current Anthropology, 38(3), 327–51. https://doi.org/10.1086/204622Google Scholar
Reddy, W. M. (2001). The navigation of feeling: A framework for the history of emotions. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenwein, B. H. (2002). Worrying about emotions in history. The American Historical Review, 107(3), 821–45. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/107.3.821Google Scholar
Scheer, M. (2012). Are emotions a kind of practice (and is that what makes them have a history)? A Bourdieuian approach to understanding emotion. History and Theory, 51(2), 193–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2012.00621.xGoogle Scholar
Smail, D. L. (2008). On deep history and the brain. University of California Press. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pp7mzGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. M. (2007). Sensing the past: Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching in history. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Stearns, P. N., & Stearns, C. Z. (1985). Emotionology: Clarifying the history of emotions and emotional standards. The American Historical Review, 90(4), 813–36. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/90.4.813Google Scholar
Sullivan, E. (2016). Beyond melancholy: Sadness and selfhood in renaissance England. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739654.001.0001Google Scholar
Vallgårda, K., Alexander, K., & Olsen, S. (2015). Emotions and the global politics of childhood. In Olsen, S. (Ed.), Childhood, youth and emotions in modern history: National, colonial and global perspectives (pp. 12–34). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484840_2Google Scholar
van Dijkhuizen, J. F., & Enenkel, K. A. E. (Eds.). (2009). The sense of suffering: Constructions of physical pain in early modern culture. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004172470.i-520Google Scholar
von Mohr, M., & Fotopoulou, A. (2018). The cutaneous borders of interoception: Active and social inference of pain and pleasure on the skin. In Tsakiris, M. & De Preester, H. (Eds.), The interoceptive mind: From homeostasis to awareness (pp. 102–20). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198811930.003.0006Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×