ABSTRACT
The author collected narrative research data on disgust, horror, awe, and fascination. These four emotions are our reactions to encounters we find to be of compelling interest. Three concepts help define the nature of the emotional encounter. These are: category-breaching, self, and humanity. Category-breaching can take the form of intercategorical experience, marginality, category-bursting, or alien status. Self involves the experience of boundary or separateness. The self-boundary is actively managed and can expand or constrict associated with emotion experience. Both self and humanity, or humanness, are key categories for human beings and are among those classifications that can be breached, with emotional consequence. The chapter also covers central concepts in emotion theory such as unconscious emotion, basic emotions theory, and the relationship between language and emotion.
