Honour and shame are social emotions par excellence. Not only do they structure interpersonal relations, they also play a crucial part in domestic and foreign policy. During the 19th and early 20th century, most European societies cultivated a strong sense of personal, as well as national honour. International conflicts were framed and staged as conflicts of honour. Military defeat was perceived and discussed as a matter of lost honour and followed by gendered practices of shaming.
The project sets out to investigate the verbal and non-verbal languages of honour and shame in various European countries, mainly Germany, Britain, France, and Italy. It traces older traditions carrying on during the modern period and acquiring new meanings in an era of mass politics and heightened nationalism. It also explores what happened to honour-and-shame politics after WWI including the experience of (anti-)colonial conflicts in the aftermath of WWII. Focusing on high and low politics and on a vast array of sources, it tries to understand and explain the dynamics of political emotions in the modern age.
Illustration: Plaque commemorating victims of the volunteer corps from 1919, Magdeburg
