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Can one explain both the cultural and the emotional dynamic of a trauma within a single theory without reducing the one to the other? This paper aims to resolve this seemingly incompatibility by synthesizing the theory of cultural trauma from Alexander and colleagues with the sociology of emotions. Building on the sociology of emotions of Hochschild and Kemper, this paper argues that such synthesis can only be achieved with a different and more fully developed theory of emotions like cognitive appraisal theory. By inserting the specific cognitive content and logic of the emotions of loss and shame in the theory, the dynamic and content of cultural traumas can better be explained. A few examples of the experience of white Afrikaners in post-apartheid South Africa are used to illustrate the place of emotions in cultural sociological analysis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]