Monthly Archives: March 2015

Circuits of Feeling in The Age of Empathy, with Dr Carolyn Pedwell

With the rise of the ‘science of empathy’ in the wake of the discovery of mirror neurons, we have seen a veritable return to biology, ethology, neuroscience, genetics and various evolutionary theories to explain not only empathic circuits of feeling within the human body, but also the emotional politics of contemporary societies internationally.

This paper grapples with the implications of the multiple layers of translation involved in politicising the science of empathy. Through a critical reading of the leading primatologist Frans de Waal’s bestselling book, The Age of Empathy (2010), I explore how the translation of scholarly scientific research on empathy into the language of popular science often involves establishing links between the biological workings of the individual organism and the health of the body politic.

In making such analogies, these translations posit homeostasis and equilibrium not only as necessary for the optimum functioning of the individual body, but also as vital to the flourishing of the social body – a move which, I contend, frequently works in the interests of maintaining the neoliberal status quo and the social and geo-political hierarchies and exclusions that underscore it.

While authors like de Waal aim to keep biology separate from ideology, culture and politics, their own scientific claims work to support a political vision premised on a version of empathy that correlates with neoliberal capitalism’s demand for an enterprising and emotionally adaptable citizenry animated by self-interest and self-responsibility. As the paper argues, however, this is not the only possible or plausible translation of science of empathy.

In this vein, I explore how the circuits of feeling de Waal describes might be interpreted in ways that contest, rather than uphold, biological essentialism and disrupt, instead of solidify, the oppressive logics of contemporary forms of neoliberal governmentality to develop what Elizabeth A. Wilson refers to as ‘a critically empathic alliance with neurology’. Indeed, when read against the grain, particular strands of contemporary neuroscience and ethology might productively complement critical cultural, political and psychoanalytic analyses of emotion and affect, contributing to a framework for conceptualising affective translation that is critically attuned to the links between empathy, materiality and power transnationally.

Dr Carolyn Pedwell is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies/Cultural Sociology at the University of Kent. You can see a video of Carolyn speaking about her book on empathy, Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy, here.

Convict Tattoos: An Intimate Reading, by Dr Helen Rogers

On arrival in the penal colony, Van Diemen’s Land, convict exiles were grilled about their offending histories, occupations and family ties while their bodies were inspected for distinguishing characteristics. The resulting convict indents thus preserved the penal state’s biographical record on each offender with snatches of their responses to interrogation. Unwittingly, however, the authorities also captured an alternative form of personal testimony by transcribing the tattoos with which many convicts had adorned their bodies.

This paper proposes a method of ‘intimate reading’ using multiple record linkage to decode the symbolic and emotional worlds of the convicted via their tattoos. Immersive reading of this kind can help us reconstruct the agency and sensibility of those who have left few traces of personal testimony but whose behaviour was captured in abstract information garnered by officialdom. The paper focuses on convict men sentenced at Great Yarmouth in the 1830s and 1840s, and argues their elaborate tattoos spectacularly depicted the men they felt themselves to be. As in the sign of the Hope and Anchor that many convicts wore, tattoos anchored the Yarmouth men in the life they had known – their loved ones, trade, sports and passions – as they entered an unknown land.

Dr Helen Rogers is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, and the author of the blog Conviction: Stories From a Nineteenth-Century Prison.

Reading Emotions: New community book group

Sally Holloway and Jane Mackleworth are excited to announce their new community reading group: ‘READING EMOTIONS: LOVE IN FICTION 1750-1950’

It’s aimed at anyone who likes reading and would like to discuss the books they have read. We will be reading neglected works of fiction published by British women between c. 1750 and 1950, as part of the Read Women campaign.

The group is specifically aimed at members of the public so please invite your neighbours, friends and family members to take part. Men and women of all ages are welcome to join.
We will meet one Friday per month 6-7.30pm from April-September 2015. Meetings will take place in the café space at the Bromley by Bow Centre in east London overlooking ‘Bob’s Park’. Books, hot drinks and refreshments will be provided free of charge. We are able to subsidise transport for less able or elderly members.

‘Reading Emotions’ is run by Sally Holloway and Jane Mackelworth of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, funded by the Queen Mary Centre for Public Engagement and subsidised by Oxford University Press.

Our first book is Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (1932), which can be posted to your home address. To join the group or find out more, please email Sally and Jane.