Habitus in Habitat I. Emotion and Motion

263 Pages·2010·5.685 MB·English

by  Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies, Jan Söffner

What is the relationship between habits and emotions? What is the role of the em- n g
o n
bodiment of emotions in a cultural habitat? What is the role of the environment for ti La
the formation of emotions and subjectivity? Mo er
t
e
One way to address these questions is through discussing an emotional habitus – a set of P
d
habits and behavioral attitudes involving the body that are fundamental to emotional n
a
communication. But this set of habits is not independent of context; it takes place within
n
a specific emotional habitat in which other bodies play a crucial role. Together, these o
i
t
constitute the foundation of sociocultural communities, psychologies of emotions and o
m
cultural practices – and they have much to contribute to the study of emotions both
E
for cognition and aesthetics. Thus, the challenge of addressing these questions cannot be

faced by either the sciences or the humanities alone. I

t
At the Berlin-based conference: Emotion and Motion, scholars gathered from various a
t
i
disciplines to broaden perspectives on the interdisciplinary field of embodied habits and b
a
embodied emotions. This book offers a new view on the related field of habitus and the H

embodied mind. n
i

s
u
t
Sabine Flach holds a PhD in Art History and works as Head of the Department bi
a
WissensKünste (Art of Knowledge and Knowledge of Art) at the Zentrum für Lite ratur- H
und Kulturforschung, Berlin. Her current work focuses on knowledge of the arts,
natur, wissenschaft und die künste nature, science et les arts nature, science and the arts
embodiment and image act, emotion and motion, other sides of cognition, aesthesis and
mediality, mental images and “Einbildungskraft”, image and body, body and gestures.
She has also developed the project “Emotion and Motion” at the Zentrum für Lite ratur-
und Kulturforschung.
Daniel Margulies holds a PhD in Psychology and works in neuroscience research at
the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the
Mind and Brain Institute in Berlin. His current works focuses on delineating neuro-
Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies & Jan Söffner (eds)
anatomy based on patterns of connectivity.
Jan Söffner holds a PhD in Romance Philology from Cologne University and works
Habitus in Habitat I
in comparative literature for the project “Emotion and Motion” at the Zentrum für
Lite ratur- und Kulturforschung. His current work focuses on embodiment, mimesis and
Emotion and Motion
metaphors as related to emotions in literature.
g
n
ISBN 978-3-0343-0530-3 La
er
et
P
www.peterlang.com
What is the relationship between habits and emotions? What is the role of the em- n g
o n
bodiment of emotions in a cultural habitat? What is the role of the environment for ti La
the formation of emotions and subjectivity? Mo er
t
e
One way to address these questions is through discussing an emotional habitus – a set of P
d
habits and behavioral attitudes involving the body that are fundamental to emotional n
a
communication. But this set of habits is not independent of context; it takes place within
n
a specific emotional habitat in which other bodies play a crucial role. Together, these o
i
t
constitute the foundation of sociocultural communities, psychologies of emotions and o
m
cultural practices – and they have much to contribute to the study of emotions both
E
for cognition and aesthetics. Thus, the challenge of addressing these questions cannot be

faced by either the sciences or the humanities alone. I

t
At the Berlin-based conference: Emotion and Motion, scholars gathered from various a
t
i
disciplines to broaden perspectives on the interdisciplinary field of embodied habits and b
a
embodied emotions. This book offers a new view on the related field of habitus and the H

embodied mind. n
i

s
u
t
Sabine Flach holds a PhD in Art History and works as Head of the Department bi
a
WissensKünste (Art of Knowledge and Knowledge of Art) at the Zentrum für Lite ratur- H
und Kulturforschung, Berlin. Her current work focuses on knowledge of the arts,
natur, wissenschaft und die künste nature, science et les arts nature, science and the arts
embodiment and image act, emotion and motion, other sides of cognition, aesthesis and
mediality, mental images and “Einbildungskraft”, image and body, body and gestures.
She has also developed the project “Emotion and Motion” at the Zentrum für Lite ratur-
und Kulturforschung.
Daniel Margulies holds a PhD in Psychology and works in neuroscience research at
the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the
Mind and Brain Institute in Berlin. His current works focuses on delineating neuro-
Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies & Jan Söffner (eds)
anatomy based on patterns of connectivity.
Jan Söffner holds a PhD in Romance Philology from Cologne University and works
Habitus in Habitat I
in comparative literature for the project “Emotion and Motion” at the Zentrum für
Lite ratur- und Kulturforschung. His current work focuses on embodiment, mimesis and
Emotion and Motion
metaphors as related to emotions in literature.
g
n
a
L
er
et
P
Habitus in Habitat I
Emotion and Motion
natur, wissenschaft und die künste
nature, science et les arts
nature, science and the arts
Band 3
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Julia Burbulla
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Ana-Stanca Tabarasi-Hoffmann
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Editorial Board
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PETER LANG
Bern (cid:115) Berlin (cid:115) Bruxelles (cid:115) Frankfurt am Main (cid:115) New York (cid:115) Oxford (cid:115) Wien
Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies &
Jan Söffner (eds)
Habitus in Habitat I
Emotion and Motion
PETER LANG
Bern (cid:115) Berlin (cid:115) Bruxelles (cid:115) Frankfurt am Main (cid:115) New York (cid:115) Oxford (cid:115) Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
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British Library and Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Habitus in Habitat I : Emotion and Motion / Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies &
Jan Söffner (eds). – 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-3-0343-0530-3
1. Conditioned response. 2. Habituation (Neuropsychology) 3. Emotions. I. Flach,
Sabine. II. Margulies, Daniel (Daniel Shendelman). III. Söffner, Jan.
IV. Title: Habitus in habitat 1. V. Title: Habitus in habitat one. VI. Title: Emotion and motion.
BF319.H28 2010
152–dc22
2010046967
The proceedings are result of a conference which was supported by the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (promotional reference: 01UG07129).
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or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in
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Cover illustration: Suzanne Anker: The Glass Veil, 2009, digital print mounted on sintra, 96”x120” /
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ISBN 978-3-0343-0530-3
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Contents
SABINE FLACH, DANIEL MARGULIES, JAN SÖFFNER
Introduction 7
Socially Shared Emotions
ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE
Performing Emotions. How to Conceptualize Emotional Contagion
in Performance 25
SHAUN GALLAGHER
Movement and Emotion in Joint Attention 41
THOMAS FUCHS
Intercorporality. How Embodied Interaction Shapes Mind and Brain 55
MARTA BRAUN
Animal Locomotion 69
JAN SÖFFNER
On Nostalgia (and Homer) 81
Expressivity and Interaction
ERIK PORATH
Situation and Motion. The Art of Expression in Fiedler and Freud 97
CHRISTINE KIRCHHOFF
Affected by the Other. On Emotion in Psychoanalysis 111
BURKHARD MEYER-SICKENDIEK
Shame and Grace. The Paradox of the “Beautiful Soul” in the 18th Century 121
ARNO VILLRINGER
The Body and its Representation in the Brain 131
The Arts Embodied
SUZANNE ANKER AND SABINE FLACH
The Glass Veil 141
JOHN M. KROIS
Experiencing Emotion in Depictions. Being Moved without Motion? 159
6 Contents
SABINE FLACH
Lament in Contemporary Art 181
HEIKE SCHLIE
Excentric Crucifixions circa 1500. On the Invention of Emotional
Resonance in Painting and the Theories of Transferring Depicted
Emotions to the Beholder 207
BARBARA LARSON
Through Stained Glass. Abstraction and Embodiment
in Early Twentieth Century Avant-Garde Circles 227
JIN HYUN KIM
Towards Embodiment-Based Research on Musical Expressiveness 245
Introduction
SABINE FLACH, DANIEL MARGULIES, AND JAN SÖFFNER
Theories of habituation reflect their diversity through the myriad disciplines from
which they emerge. They entail several issues of trans-disciplinary interest –
such as embodiment, aesthetics and phenomenology, which on the other hand
have profoundly influenced the discussion. Embodiment has become a prominent
issue in disciplines such as the cognitive sciences, neurosciences and psychology
– but it has equally had an impact on the social sciences, art history, and cultural,
literary, and media studies, as well as philosophy of mind and phenomenology.
Since the 1980s, from the interaction of these various perspectives, interdiscipli-
nary fields of research have emerged. Phenomenological and neurophenomeno-
logical issues play a key role in the discussions, and this is one of the most prom-
ising fields of cultural, social and psychological interest. At the same time the
issue of aesthetic experiencing, and especially of the relation between the senses
and the emotions, has provided vivid and fruitful debates – and they are essential
for artistic fields of knowledge as well. One major issue here is not just the
senses, but also phenomena of ‘sense’ (meaning) and ‘sense’ (sensuality) in their
intricate interaction.
This interaction includes the ‘sense’ emerging in environmental relations,
but also its subjective manifestations through perception; and it is based upon the
correspondence of the sensual organs and the modalities of the senses.1 The in-
terdependence of sense and the senses, of cultural meaning and sensuality, can
only be conceived as being a complex relation of stability and flexibility, of ha-
bituations and readjustments, considering both a shared reality and private expe-
rience. The meaning emerging from the balance and the adjustments of these
interrelations cannot accordingly be analyzed by referring to concepts of the in-
telligible world alone – as would be the case when reducing it to concepts of
inscribed meanings. Embodiment entails a phenomenology that cannot just be
reduced to concepts or metaphors of scripture. Rather the approach to these phe-
nomena must be profoundly based on concepts of performance and performativi-

1 Cf. Krämer: “Sinnlichkeit, Denken, Medien”, p. 24. Krämer argues that the distinction be-
tween the Sense (sensing) and sense (meaning) has not always been a cultural given: “Sense
derives from traveling or following a track; originally it implies a movement in space and
most of all the pursuit of a certain direction in the act of doing something”, p. 29. Cf. also
Flach: Sensing Senses.
8 Sabine Flach, Daniel Margulies, and Jan Söffner
ty, regarding the interrelation of sense and sensing2 as a relation as inextricably
linked to the interrelation of habitus and habitat.
Despite the fact that similar discussions have always been inherently inter-
disciplinary, the disparate nature of disciplinary approaches continues to thwart
the necessary exchange of ideas. To grant a common base for the whole project,
we have developed the unifying theme: habitus in habitat, because it constitutes
a fundamental issue concerning all these fields of interest, and it allows for con-
tributions from a variety of disciplines.
The term habitus, in a general sense, refers to habituated embodied and men-
tal schemata, implied in social communication, in personal attitudes, in social
identity, in cultural experience and in the production of cultural meaning. On the
other hand subjectivity is not only constituted by habitus – a habitus is also deep-
ly rooted in subjectivity and depends on subjective experiencing as well.
The concept of habitus is also profoundly ‘emotional’ from its very origin
and its antique predecessors. The Greek word for habitus is hexis – i.e., the ‘hav-
ing’ also rendered in the Latin word habitus – and as such it is already used in
Aristotle, most prominently in the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle thinks of hexis
as a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have feelings and to act
(1105b 25–6). Hexis is a stance on oneself and on the environment. Moral virtue,
in his eyes, is therefore the right hexis, i.e. the disposition to have appropriate
feelings and act appropriately. It is thereby a form of cognition and judgment as
well – even though it does not necessarily imply conscious reasoning.
Indeed, emotions have always been central to human experience and beha-
vior. They condition our actions and are inherent in all forms of communication.3
It has also become widely accepted that there is no cognition without emotion,
suggesting that every formation of cognitive skills and epistemological faculties,
every cultural practice and any form of human communication is accompanied
by specific emotional habituations and the formation of an emotional habitus – a
set of habits involved in emotional communication.
Since these habituations always imply a stance on the surrounding environ-
ment, they are closely linked to a habitat as well. In the current discussions on the
emotions, this is true, e.g. for Jesse J. Prinz, who conceives of emotions as “not
merely perceptions of the body but also perceptions of our relations to the
world”4; it is true for Peter Goldie, who develops a concept of conscious “feeling
towards”5 and focuses on emotions “by subtly identifying the thoughts which are
involved” in order to open up “a space to consider the ethical and sometimes the
political dimensions of an emotion”6; it is true for Joseph LeDoux, who con-

2 Emrich: “Illusionen, die Wirklichkeit und das Kino”, p. 41/46, and Krämer: “Sinnlichkeit,
Denken, Medien”, p. 33.
3 Damasio: Descartes' Error.
4 Jesse J. Prinz: Gut Reactions, p. 20.
5 Peter Goldie: The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration, pp. 58–62.
6 Ibid., p. 27.