This chapter defines the main features of the core concepts in the collection, namely the dominant discourses of fear, anxiety, and crisis in a twenty-first-century global and, particularly, European context. To do so, it situates the study of these public emotions within the theoretical context of the turn to affects and emotions. One of the innovative aspects of this chapter is that it provides a succinct overview of the recent ascent of the scholarly interest in emotions and affects and distinguishes between these two turns, unlike the current trend which tends to conflate them as synonyms of essentially the same phenomenon. The chapter also identifies what is distinct about the present “culture of fear” and its relationship with the public spread of anxiety. In terms of the discourse of crisis, it is associated with the concept of “moral panics,” which despite its conceptualisation almost five decades ago is still recognised as a pertinent term to analyse affective responses to contemporary crises, such as those relating to COVID-19 or climate change. The introduction concludes with a presentation of the rationale and a presentation of the internal coherence of the collection.