Sociologist Jack Katz, JD'69, studies "emotional outbursts"--from anger and shame to laughter and crying--to untangle the complex interactions of emotions, body, and language. We cry, Katz says, when words are not enough.

This article is adapted from How Emotions Work (University of Chicago Press, 1999), by Jack Katz, JD'69. Katz, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, is also the author of Poor People's Lawyers in Transition and Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions to Doing Evil.

©1999 by Jack Katz. All rights reserved.