Eva Illouz, one of sociology’s most innovative thinkers, brings together an engaging group of scholars to explore the complex relations between our con- sumption practices and the world of emotion. Framed by Illouz’ theoretical vision, Emotions as Commodities takes us into a varied tour that includes Club Med resorts, Israeli sex cards, greeting cards, psychotherapy and more. The book contributes to the sociology of consumption markets but its insights will also appeal to a general audience.—Viviana A. Zelizer, Lloyd Cotsen ’50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy Through intriguing theoretical discussions and fascinating empirical case studies, this book throws new light on the paradox of contemporary capitalism furthering both increased rationalization and an unprecedented intensification of emotional life. A must read for sociologists, marketing scholars and anyone interested in contemporary consumer capitalism, a culture ever more centered on emotional commodities or ‘emodities’.—Adam Arvidsson, Associate Professor, Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milano, Italy Emotions as Commodities Capitalism has made rationality into a pervasive feature of human action and yet, far from heralding a loss of emotionality, capitalist culture has been accompanied with an unprecedented intensification of emotional life. This raises the question: how could we have become increasingly rationalized and more intensely emotional? Emotions as Commodities offers a simple hypothesis: that consumer acts and emotional life have become closely and inseparably intertwined with each other, each one defining and enabling the other. Commodities facilitate the experience of emotions, and so emotions are converted into commodities. The contributors of this volume present the co-production of emotions and commodities as a new type of commodity that has gone unseen and unanalysed by theories of consumption – emodity. Indeed, this innovative book explores how emodity includes atmospher- ical or mood-producing commodities, relation-marking commodities and mental commodities, all of which the purpose it is to change and improve the self. Analysing a variety of modern day situations such as emotional management through music, creation of urban sexual atmospheres and emotional transforma- tion through psychotherapy, Emotions as Commodities will appeal to scholars, postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Sociology, Cultural Studies, Marketing, Anthropology and Consumer Studies. Eva Illouz is Rose Isaacs Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Directrice d’Etudes at the EHESS, Paris. Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Emotions Further information on the series is available at: www.routledge.com/sociology/ series/RSSE Titles in this series: 1 Love and Society Special Social Forms and the Master Emotion Swen Seebach 2 Emotions as Commodities Capitalism, Consumption and Authenticity Edited by Eva Illouz Emotions as Commodities Capitalism, Consumption and Authenticity Edited by Eva Illouz First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business  2018 selection and editorial matter, Eva Illouz; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Eva Illouz to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-62823-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-21074-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK Contents List of contributors ix Acknowledgements xii Introduction: emodities or the making of emotional commodities 1 EVA ILLOUZ PART I Liberating the self: emotional experiences and moods 31 1 “It is all included – without the stress”: exploring the production of relaxation in Club Med seaside resorts 33 YAARA BENGER ALALUF 2 Emotional ear drops: the music industry and technologies of emotional management 56 ORI SCHWARZ 3 Cinema as an emotional commodity: the horror genre and the commodification of fear 79 DANIEL GILON 4 Sex cards in Tel Aviv: mood work, recreational sexuality and urban atmospheres 102 DANA KAPLAN PART II Ideal of intimacy: relational emotions 121 5 Understanding authenticity in commercial sentiment: the greeting card as emotional commodity 123 EMILY WEST viii Contents PART III The ideal of mental health and self-improvement: emotional self-monitoring as commodity 145 6 (Ex)changing feelings: on the commodification of emotions in psychotherapy 147 MATTAN SHACHAK 7 “Psytizens”, or the construction of happy individuals in neoliberal societies 173 EDGAR CABANAS Toward a post-normative critique of emotional authenticity: conclusion 197 EVA ILLOUZ Index 214 Contributors Yaara Benger Alaluf is a PhD candidate at the Department of History of The Free University of Berlin and a member of the International Max Planck Research School for Moral Economies of Modern Societies at the Research Center “History of Emotions” at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Her research explores the entanglement of emotional and economic discourses from the nineteenth century onward and its moral implications. Her work examines the history and sociol- ogy of emotions in the tourism industry; the construction spatiotemporal characteristics of emotional experience; and the impact of psychological repertoires on the conceptualization of work and leisure. She has published on the evolution of the consumer as an emotional agent, the phenome- nology of consumption, and the relation between therapeutic culture and economic rationalization. Edgar Cabanas has a PhD in Psychology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is currently Associate Professor at the Universidad Camilo José Cela and Adjunct Researcher at the Center for the History of Emotions (Max Planck Institute for Human Development), in Berlin, where he held a Postdoctoral Research position for two years. His main field of research focuses on the political, economic, and social uses of the contemporary psychologi- cal notion of happiness. He has published several papers and book chapters on this topic, such as Rekindling Individualism, Consuming Emotions: The Construction of Psytizens in the Age of Happiness; Inverting the Pyramid of Needs: Positive Psychology’s New Order for Labor Success; and The Making of a ‘Happy Worker’: Positive Psychology in Neoliberal Organizations. He has been a visiting scholar in the Center for the Study of Rationality at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2011 and 2013, and he is a team member of several R&D International Projects. Daniel Gilon is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Clinical Psychologist. His main research interests are the sociology and cultural