The human heart is, in many ways, an indecipherable enigma. The opposition of reason and passion has long prevented us from recognizing emotions and feelings as legitimate sources of knowledge. This book takes a deep dive into the rich phenomenology of affect, with a view to uncovering its essence and variety of forms: the experience of being “invaded” by an emotion is different to that of being “immersed” in a mood, just as being “guided” by a feeling does not mean being “swept away” by a passionate impulse. Hence the need for a systematic phenomenology of emotionality that can help us to appreciate such distinctions. The philosophical and pedagogical trajectory outlined in these pages provides education and healthcare practitioners – and indeed all those willing to improve their self-knowledge – with the key to a deeper understanding of the emotional life and its meaning for our existence.

This book is a sociological analysis of the relationship between modern society, in particular America, and Calvinism in the Weberian tradition. While the book continues this tradition, it further expands, elaborates on, and goes beyond earlier sociological analyses. The book examines the impact of Calvinism on modern society as a whole, thus extending, elaborating on, and going beyond the previous analyses of the influence of the Calvinist religion only on the capitalist economy. It analyzes how Calvinism has determined most contemporary social institutions, including political, civic, cultural, and economic, in its respective societies, particularly, through its derivative Puritanism, America. For that purpose, the book applies the idea of the destiny of societies or nations to American society in particular. It argues, demonstrates, and illustrates the Calvinist societal "predestination," through the Puritan determination, of American society .

Emotion and the Seduction of the Senses, Baroque to Neo-Baroque examines the relationship between the cultural productions of the baroque in the seventeenth century and the neo-baroque in our contemporary world. The volume illuminates how, rather than providing rationally ordered visual realms, both the baroque and the neo-baroque construct complex performative spaces whose spectacle seeks to embrace, immerse, and seduce the senses and solicit the emotions of the beholder.

This book attempts to explain why the religious radicalism of the sixties gave way to the conservatism of the seventies.