Researchers in early modern sound and music studies have struggled to integrate insights from the history of emotions into their work. This project aims to bridge this gap by bringing together experts in the histories of emotions, the body, and the senses with scholars in the
histories of music and sound to investigate the role of fear in authoritative regimes in
Eurasian (e.g., Austrian, Habsburg, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Ottoman) spaces from 1550 to 1750.
Narratives of fear in early modern European sources often locate the causes of crises in the East. In the Austrian Habsburg empire, for instance, the Ottomans are blamed for plague, war, apostasy, and other societal ills. Ottoman sources, in turn, counter these assumptions, attributing similar problems to the actions of Europeans to the West or Safavids to the East. Migration, especially the forced displacement of populations during wars and conflicts, played a crucial role in shaping these fears.
Yet their mobility also provoked anxiety, whether due to perceived moral deviance or the disruptive ideas they might bring with them.
Fear also plays a central role in early modern plague writings, where it was a key factor in preventing or contracting the disease. Similarly, fear pervades sources that address the threats of witchcraft, sorcery, death, and natural disasters such as earthquakes and storms […]