Robert A. Schneider on 'The Rise and Fall of the “Resentment Paradigm” (ca 1935-1975)

Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast

Robert A. Schneider, a historian of early modern France at Indiana University Bloomington, and the former long-standing editor of the American Historical Review, talks to Lewis Defrates about his paper 'The Rise and Fall of the “Resentment Paradigm” (ca 1935-1975). The paper discusses the work of postwar intellectuals such as Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipsett and Talcott Parsons, reframing their shared interest in the 'resentment' in the subjects they studied. Rob discusses the tenets this school of thought was built on (modernization theory, psychoanalysis, and consensus liberalism), the way this was articulated through their intellectual work, the repudiation of this work from the 1970s onwards, and the resurgence of an interest in resentment in the past half-decade. The paper encourages to rethink both the history of emotion and the production of knowledge regarding the history of emotions, demonstrating what these intellectuals missed in their pursuit of resentment and how today's academics can avoid these mistakes. If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, get in touch via @camericanist on Twitter or [e-mail]. Spread the word, and thanks for listening! See you... soon?