Abstract
This paper aims to identify a field in formation, herein named Mood Studies. Influenced by the “affective turn”, this field is composed of studies from several disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology, Geography, Art History, Communication, Literature, and Architecture. Its common focus is on specific aspects of social phenomena such as mood, climate, and atmosphere. To map this field, three main concepts – Stimmung, atmosphere, and structure of feeling – are identified, and special attention is given to the hybridity between individual and collective, as well as between subjective and objective. With short genealogies, we show that these concepts are building a common grammar. This grammar and the critical detachment from Affect Theory provide specificity to the field.
Keywords
mood; Stimmung; climate; atmosphere; structure of feeling