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In this highly readable book, Doyle McCarthy covers some of the main ways that emotions have become important in our global societies. She explains that emotional culture is important for understanding today’s world, its markets, its politics and its mass media. To live today is to be emotionally intelligent in our relations and in our workplaces. In the modern age, global capitalism and mass media have shaped our emotions and made us more emotional. Public life has become a place where we search out emotional happenings: at shopping malls, concerts, sports events, memorials to death and disaster and in the pursuit of sports.
2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
The book is aimed at a general, non-specialist audience, although those who study emotions would also benefit from reading it. [...] This is unquestionably a critical resource. —CHOICE
“With this book, E. Doyle McCarthy cements her standing as a critical guide to the emotional architecture emerging from capitalism’s economy that permeates personal and cultural dramas. With conceptual clarity and brilliant examples, we can appreciate how emotions, meanings, and relationships are cultivated in present-day media culture engulfing identities, love, play, and politics.” — David L. Altheide, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, USA
“Our Emotions and Culture: How Modern Life Changes Us is a brilliant book. Sociologist E Doyle McCarthy invites us to interrogate the intersection between self, society, and culture. She offers readers a sophisticated theoretical vocabulary to understand contemporary emotional life using excellent illustrations to contextualize her arguments. More importantly, she gives us an original perspective on why emotions matter to us more than ever.” — Natalia Ruiz-Junco, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, Auburn University, USA
“The particular contributions of this book are articulating the social/cultural nature of emotions and emphasizing historical contexts and change. In so doing, it offers a deep challenge to our typical way of understanding emotions as conditions arising from within individuals. As described nicely in the conclusion, this understanding encourages us to understand the ways in which we are influenced by the surrounding culture.” — Donileen R. Loseke, Professor Emerita, Department of Sociology, University of South Florida, USA
McCarthy’s prose invites readers to think about questions or issues that sit at the heart of each chapter and at the core of the book. [...] it locates itself in several classical debates that most students of sociology would recognize. — Symbolic Interaction
Doyle McCarthy is professor emerita of sociology and American studies at Fordham University, New York. Her areas of research and writing include social theories of modernity, sociology of knowledge and emotion studies.
Preface; 1. Introduction: On Individualism and Emotions; 2. What Is Modernity? How the Modern World Shaped Our Emotions?; 3. Emotional Cultures: Understanding the Concept; 4. The Authenticity of Emotions Today; 5. Today’s Emotional Pursuits and Their Markets; 6. Concluding Thoughts: Studying Emotions as Culture; Sources and Further Readings; Index