Author Archives: emmasutton

Lunchtime Seminar: ‘Exploring A(h)ware and (W)okashi, or the Exquisite in the Trivial: An Attempt to Identify Far-Eastern Sensibilities and Aesthetics in Virginia Woolf’s Writings’, Yukiko Kinoshita

In 1925, Virginia Woolf reviewed Arthur Waley’s translation of Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji, a Japanese classic supposedly written around 1000. The second chapter of Murasaki’s novel reveals to the reader her aesthetics and aesthetic of novel-writing, which, I would like to suggest, appealed to Woolf’s pacifism, feminism and aesthetics and encouraged her to explore her own themes and Modernist method of writing. Lady Murasaki’s aesthetic sensibilities were shared by her contemporary and rival, Sei Shonagon, well known for her masterpiece, The Pillow-Book, part of which Waley translated in 1927. Theirs could be summarized as heightened sensibilities which perceive the exquisite in the trivial or the ordinary. The attitude to discover things that matter in the seemingly trivial and common, poetic prose style, keen sensibilities and pictorial descriptions conscious of colour scheme—these characteristics are something in common between the two female Japanese authors, although Lady Murasaki’s characteristics lie in her sense of “a(h)ware” —an impassioned response to beauty—whereas Sei Shonagon’s in her sense of “(w)okashi”—an intellectual response to beauty.

The two authoresses’ aesthetics or approach to beauty is subjective, and I would like to suggest that it is, in nature, close to what Walter Pater termed as “strangeness in beauty” and “sweet strangeness,” and, therefore, something that Woolf as well as other Western readers can identify. My presentation is an attempt to introduce to the audience the aesthetics and sensibilities which the two terms—aw(h)re and (w)okashi—represent, to clarify the connection between Woolf’s and the two Japanese authoresses’ sensibilities, aesthetic and aesthetics, and to throw light on the development of Woolf’s Modernist aesthetics and method.

Lunchtime Seminar: ‘Shame in Early Modern Public Execution’, Una McIlvenna (Queen Mary University of London)

‘Do you know what the world will do to you? It will make you understand that these things bring you great shame and wrong you: the tolling of the bell, the reading of the condemnation, your being tied and led before the people…’

Bologna Comforters’ Manual in The Art of Executing Well, ed. Nicholas Terpstra (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2008)

This paper looks at how the emotion of shame was conceived around early modern public execution, and further, how shame was then portrayed in the broadside ballads that broadcast information about executions. It seems paradoxical that in the moments before their death condemned criminals were deeply concerned about the shame their punishment would create. Why would a person about to die care about feeling shame? I explore how, in contrast to our current understanding of it as a private, personal emotion, shame was conceived as a communal emotion in the early modern period, one that people shared, and which had tangible consequences for one’s family and friends. In that sense, can shame even be considered an emotion in early modern thought? I discuss these issues from the perspective of the ballads that were sung about these executions. How did balladry perpetuate – or subvert – the message of shame that was central to the purpose of execution?

19th / 26th November, Emotional States: Film, Melodrama, Gender

Two film screenings and a symposium, which will consider the heightened world of film melodrama as a site for the gendered representation of intense emotional experience. The Seventh Veil uses psychiatry, a popular theme of 1940s cinema, to explore female consciousness, trauma and romantic love, while the male-centred Bigger Than Life constructs a baroque, disordered vision of suburban America and family life in the 1950s. A panel of film scholars will consider questions of affect, aesthetics, genre and gender.

Wednesday 19th November: The Seventh Veil (1945), introduced by Peter Evans

Wednesday 26th November: Bigger Than Life (1956), introduced by Andrew Asibong

Panel discussion: Andrew Asibong (Birkbeck), Peter Evans (QMUL), Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck), followed by discussion. Chair: Adrian Garvey (QMUL).

See here for more information and to register.

Jules Evans presents Radio 4 documentaries on Aristotle and Jung

Jules Evans, the Centre’s policy director, recently presented two mini-documentaries as part of Radio 4’s ‘History of Ideas’ series. The first was on Aristotle and the revival of his idea of flourishing in modern politics and education. It featured interviews with Sir Gus O’Donnell and James O’Shaughnessy and can be heard here.

The second programme was about Carl Jung, his concept of the shadow, and how it is explored in literature. It featured interviews with psychotherapist Mark Vernon and fantasy writer Juliet McKenna. You can listen to it here. 

Both programmes were produced by Miles Warde.

Music, Emotions and Well-Being Conference

Music is commonly treated as an emotional stimulant that can calm, console or energise. That music can and frequently does contribute to an individual’s sense of well-being is commonly accepted. This relationship between music, the emotions and well-being has been studied from two different perspectives. It has been the subject of historical investigations problematizing what emotions are and exploring historically variant practices of using music as an emotional tool.

Secondly, studies by psychologists and, increasingly, by neurologists have produced exciting results by measuring music’s effect on the emotions in physiological terms that appear universal and a-historical. We aim to bring these two seemingly incompatible views of music’s emotional effects together to search for research strategies that can incorporate ideas of cultural conditioning into scientific research methods.

As such, the symposium addresses both the role and potential of music in well-being, but it also raises the bar for medical humanities by investigating how its research areas can impact on research questions and strategies beyond the humanities. Delegates will present their views from the fields of neurology, cognitive psychology, music therapy, history and musicology. The symposium will be based on pre-circulated papers to allow maximum discussion time.

Aims

In this interdisciplinary research symposium we will bring together historians, musicologists, psychologists, music therapists, and neuroscientists, to look beyond influential yet often un-theorized views of music and ’emotion’ to explore how music can function as a strategic tool in establishing individual well-being. The relationship between music, the body and the nervous system is the subject of intense interest both in a medical context and in the humanities. While neurologists have researched the impact of music on the brain, musicologists have rediscovered the significance of music’s physical effects in historical and present-day contexts.

These investigations into music’s relationship with emotions and with well-being fall broadly into two categories: scientific understandings of music’s emotional effects commonly take both music and emotions as unproblematic, universal categories; while historical approaches show these categories to be culturally contingent. This duality is entrenched in different methodological approaches which appear to necessitate the duality, yet at the heart of the opposition lies a fundamental discrepancy between different disciplinary groups’ modes of understanding data.

We aim to question the duality’s necessity and explore new ways to merge research questions by investigating how postmodern theories of social and historical conditioning can influence the formulation of scientific research questions. Through this symposium we aim to further an understanding of each field’s research questions and methods, and to explore new collaborative projects.  

Practical information
Location: Queen Mary University of London: Bainbridge Seminar Room, 2nd floor in the Robin Brook Centre, St Bartolomews Hospital, London EC1A 7BE . You will find a map, showing the location of the Robin Brook Centre (number 2 on the map, which is very near the Barts Pathology Museum) together with the necessary practical information, on the following website: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/docs/about/45401.pdf

Registration: PARTICIPATION IS FREE OF CHARGE BUT REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Registration is at a first come, first served basis and space is limited! To book a place please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-emotions-and-well-being-historical-and-scientific-perspectives-tickets-11504214415

Conference Programme  here

Conference Abstracts here

Conference Flyer here

Review of the event by Penelope Gouk in Remedia: The History of Medicine in Dialogue with its Present (24 Jul 2014): here

Conference Organisers: Penelope Gouk (Manchester), James Kennaway (Newcastle), Jacomien Prins (Warwick), and Wiebke Thormählen (RCM)

Contact: For any other queries, please contact us on the following e-mail address: MusicEW2014@warwick.ac.uk

Supported by:

Wellcome Trust +++ Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) +++ The Royal Music Association (RMA)

Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), University of Warwick +++ Centre for the Study of the Renaissance (CSR), University of Warwick

Centre for the History of the Emotions, Department of History, Queen Mary, University of London +++ Music & Letters Trust

The 2014 History of Emotions Lecture: Professor Michael Roper, ‘Children, Veterans and Domesticity in Britain after the Great War’

On Wednesday 26th November Professor Michael Roper from the University of Essex will be delivering our 2014 Annual Lecture on the topic of ‘Children, Veterans and Domesticity in Britain after the Great War.’

The lecture will begin at 6.30pm in the Arts Two lecture theatre on Queen Mary’s Mile End campus and will be followed by a drinks reception. Details and booking available via Eventbrite.