Introduction

This introduction proposes a historically and locally active approach to the study of sensibilities with a transnational and globally oriented perspective, which goes beyond an abstract, totalizing approach, even beyond a notion of “enlightened sensibility.”

Considering a polyphonic, dissonant, and ambivalent Enlightenment and its legacy in a broad sense, the contributions in this book explore the intersections between experiences and representations of sensibility with gender, race, sexuality, and nation. A history of sensibilities understood in these broad terms, this chapter argues, goes beyond a history of emotions and a history of ideas and allows for a better analysis of how people perceived the world and its hierarchies.