A Taxonomy of Emotion

Welcome to WHY DO I FEEL? a podcast that takes us on an emotional journey. We share stories to help make sense of our experiences and to know that we are not alone. In this series, real people talk about emotional turning points in their lives. How they felt in these moments, and how their lives were changed. We’ll look at each story through the lens of a single emotion, or at least that’s where we’ll start… but feelings aren’t that simple.

Dougie was betrayed and sought revenge. Cathrine was hurt and unable to talk to the person who hurt her. They both found themselves revelling in the same feeling, but at what cost?

To understand why we feel, we need to understand what a feeling is. That’s where our experts come in. In this episode, we hear from:

Tiffany Watt Smith is the author of The Book of Human Emotions, which tells the stories of 156 feelings from around the world. She is a Reader in Cultural History at Queen Mary University of London. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, the BBC News Magazine and The New Scientist. In 2014, she was named a BBC New Generation Thinker and in 2019 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme prize. She is the Director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions. @drtiffwattsmith

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is among the top one per cent most cited scientists in the world for her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. She is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also Chief Science Officer for the Centre for Law, Brain & Behavior at Harvard University. @LFeldmanBarrett

Written and presented by Nathan Filer. @nathanfiler

Produced by Kelly Windsor Burgin. Original music by Harrison Pawsey.

Supported by Arts Council England.

For a transcript of this episode visit this link.

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