Emotional Imprints : A Computer-assisted Analysis of War-related Emotions in Dutch Parliamentary Debates, 1945–1989

Abstract

That World War II is connected to emotions seems self-evident. But what did this relationship entail? Did it change over time? And how can we know such things? Milan van Lange’s PhD-thesis ‘Emotional Imprints: A Computer-assisted Analysis of War-related Emotions in Dutch Parliamentary Debates, 1945–1989’ offers a creative and innovative perspective on ‘things we think we know’ regarding emotions related to the aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands.

‘Emotional Imprints’ investigates the role of emotions in the post-war political engagement with the war’s consequences. By applying text mining to identify and quantify emotional expressions in thousands of digitised historical documents, Van Lange analyses not only whether emotions were present, but also how they were expressed in parliamentary debates on people who experienced the long-term effects of the war, such as former collaborators and war criminals, the anti-Nazi resistance, and various groups of war victims.

Outcomes of this investigation show how emotions were never absent in the post-war sources analysed. The thesis provides an empirically supported farewell to received wisdoms about a ‘silent’ period in the 1950s, or a strong ‘emotionalisation’ in the 1970s. Rather than emotions making history themselves, politicians gave emotions a role in discussing contemporary matters. This role evolved from ‘descriptive’ to ‘appraising’ and ultimately ‘distant’ and ‘abstract’.

The thesis displays how historical research can be enhanced by (re)sources, methods, and ideas from various fields, ranging from social psychology to computer linguistics. ‘Emotional Imprints’ makes an original contribution to methodological innovation highly relevant to historical research – especially in times of mass-digitisation and an increasing availability of digital-born sources.