Academic Emotions and Emotional Academics: The Vitelli-Schiaparelli Family, 1880s–1940s

Abstract

This article demonstrates that emotions mattered to academics and academia more broadly. As demonstrated by the case of the Vitelli-Schiaparelli family, emotional connections affected every stage of academic production and life, involving extended families and circles of friends. In the face of conflict, these connections defined expectations, at once exacerbating antagonisms and providing a ground to overcome them. Crucially, they led to the conflation of work and life, elevating academia as an environment and its members above others – at least in terms of their self-perceived moral value – sometimes enhancing people’s lives and purpose, and at other times devastating them.