Focus: The emotional economy of science

With rare exceptions, the emotions have received little attention from historians of science. Indeed, for the modern period, interest in the field has moved in the opposite direction, as it were, toward a history of objectivity. This essay addresses methodological and historical assumptions about the nature of emotions and their place in science that limit our engagement with emotions as historical objects and agents. It outlines several approaches that situate the emotions within scientific practice, including the practices of objectivity and of the scientific self.