It is a modernist article of faith that emotion belongs to the human subject—that it is possessed by this subject from within. We find this view espoused by thinkers as various as Descartes, Hume, and Kant. It is also found in the conventional belief that emotions have their seat “in the heart.” In this essay I explore an alternative paradigm whereby emotion exists as much, if not more, at the outer edges of the subject: in expressive gestures and other forms of what I call “exophany,” i.e., the showing-forth of emotion from without. Instead of concerning ourselves with the endogeny of emotions—its internal generation in the body, brain, or soul—I look at the peripherality of emotions. Examining concrete examples, I demonstrate that emotions are transmissible thanks to their capacity for being located at the edges of our lives.

一条现代主义信仰的文章认为，情感属于人类主题，而情感是这个主题从内部拥有的。我们发现这种观点受到笛卡尔，休ume和康德等思想家的拥护。在传统观念中，人们还发现情感在“心脏”中占有一席之地。在这篇文章中我将探讨另一种范式。感情存在为多，如果不是更多，在主体的外边缘：在表达手势和其他形式的我称之为“exophany”，即放映来回情绪从没有。我关注的不是情感的内生性，而是情感的内生性，它是在身体，大脑或灵魂的内部生成，而是关注情感的外围性。通过研究具体的例子，我证明了情感是可以传播的，这是因为情感能够被置于我们生活的边缘。