Before Emotion: Conceptualizing Affectivity in Pre-modern Cultures

This book brings together scholars working in eleven different classical traditions – Greek, Chinese, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic, Pali, Hittite, Egyptian, Japanese and Sumerian – to investigate how major texts in these traditions conceptualized, mapped and categorized the sentiments, attitudes and states we think of as emotion. This volume is distinctive in its focus on foundational questions concerning the categorization and conceptualization of emotion. It is also unique in its degree of collaboration among scholars working in different disciplines and in a vast range of ancient traditions. This book aims to build on the resources of these traditions to make an intervention in how we might think about emotions today.

David Konstan was a Professor of Classics at New York University and Emeritus Professor at Brown University, USA. His research focused on ancient Greek and Latin literature, especially comedy and the novel, and classical philosophy.