Arc of Feeling: The History of the Swing

Javier Moscoso

Reaktion Books

Synopsis

From beloved elements of children’s playgrounds to leather tools of bondage, a sweeping study of the cultural significance of swings.

In Arc of Feeling Javier Moscoso investigates the pleasure of oscillation and explores the surprising history of the swing through its meanings and metaphors, noting echoes and coincidences in remote times and places: from the witch’s broom to aerial yoga and from the gallows to sexual mores. Taking in cultural history, science, art, anthropology, and philosophy, Moscoso explores the presence and role of this artifact in the West, such as in the works of Watteau, Fragonard, and Goya, as well as in other Eastern traditions, including those of India, Korea, Thailand, and China. Linked since ancient times with sex and death, used by gods and madmen, as well as an erotic and therapeutic instrument, the swing is revealed to be an essential but forgotten object in the history of human experience.

About the Author

Javier Moscoso is Professor of History at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). In 2011 he published Pain: A Cultural History in both English and Spanish. The French edition received the French booksellers' Libr'à nous prize for the best history book of 2015. It is now being translated into Arabic. He has been Visiting Scholar at the Sorbonne, at the University of Harvard, and Visting Professor at the University of Chicago or the Max Planck in Berlin, among many other institutions. His latest book, The Arc of Feeling: A History of the Swing, explores rituals and mythologies of the swing throughout history.

Read more about Javier Moscoso

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