Author Archives: helenstark

Brown-bag seminar: Alex Esche ‘Protesting “in a Proper Spirit”: The Moralities and Subjectivities of Late Victorian Anti-Alien Agitation’,

Alex Esche (Max Planck, Berlin), will give a paper titled: ‘Protesting “in a Proper Spirit”: The Moralities and Subjectivities of Late Victorian Anti-Alien Agitation’. Please bring your own lunch. All welcome.

Abstract:

The emergence and impact of the anti-alien movement – a diverse and loosely connected group of individual actors and organisations advocating for restricting the immigration of Eastern European Jewish refugees into London’s East End – have typically been understood and analysed in one of two contexts: Either as an almost automatic and natural reaction to the socio-economic circumstances in which the movement emerged, or as an expression of a specific “civil” or “silent” British antisemitism. Both approaches pay only marginal attention to the subjective contributions and performances of individual actors which, I contend, were of vital importance for the movement’s longevity and successes, facilitating the introduction of four anti-alien bills, two Select Committees and a Royal Commission before the passing of the Aliens Act in 1905.

In the course of my paper, I will present the anti-alien movement as a predominately but not exclusively white, male, and Gentile middle-class movement, whose actors appropriated and narrativized both “material reality” and contemporary moral value judgements regarding contested issues like antisemitism and working-class pauperism. The way this anti-alien narrative was subjectively performed by individual actors at the movement’s public protest meetings comes under particular scrutiny. Protesting “in a proper spirit” was vital to remain acceptable to the movement’s upper- and middle-class audience, both Jewish and Gentile, whereas the desire for popular support from working-class East Enders suggested a different emotional and spatial framing. Striking the right balance between the two was a challenge posed before each actor, whose subjective performance at a given rally could make or break the anti-alien movement.

The talk will take place in room 3.16, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

See our events programme for information about other seminars this term.

Lunchtime seminar: Merridee Bailey ‘Formulaic Emotions: Searching Language for Meaning’

Merridee Bailey (Oxford) will give a paper titled ‘Formulaic Emotions: Searching Language for Meaning’. Abstract to follow. Lunch will be provided and all are welcome.

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

See our events programme for information about other seminars this term.

Brown-bag lunchtime seminar: Linnea Tillema ‘“An exercise in freedom”: Emotional work and norms of self-improvement in Sweden, 1960-1980s.’

At this ‘Brown bag seminar’ (bring your own lunch), Linnea Tillema, will give a paper titled ‘“An exercise in freedom”: Emotional work and norms of self-improvement in Sweden, 1960-1980s.’

Abstract:

In my ongoing doctoral project, I study the pedagogical and normative aspects of the insistent talk about sexual and emotional liberation, fulfilment, and personal growth as it transpired in Sweden c. 1960–1980. The empirical cases are drawn from three different fields of pedagogical enterprise: leadership training, parenting courses, and sexual advice literature. Within these three, rather different contexts, freedom and authenticity in emotional (or sexual) reactions and expressions were systematically encouraged and made the goal of advanced exercises, elaborate training programmes, and a structured, goal-oriented work aimed at improving the self and one’s ability to form authentic relationships to others. By studying the norms embedded in these projects, and the role they played in modern subject formation and the construction of social and political identities, I hope to shed light on the emergence of late modern reform programmes focused on the individual and concerned with individual self-optimisation, which have since proliferated.

At the advertised seminar, I will exemplify the larger themes and questions of my project by discussing one of my case studies in some detail. This study focuses on discourses and practices surrounding “sensitivity training”, a method for leadership training within the larger frame of organisational development, which became popular in Sweden in the early 1970s.

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

See our events programme for information about other seminars this term.

Lunchtime seminar: David Geiringer ‘Catholicism, contraception and emotions in post-war England’

In the first lunchtime seminar of 2018, QMUL’s David Geiringer will give a paper titled ‘Catholicism, contraception and emotions in post-war England’. Lunch will be provided and all are welcome.

Abstract:

Since its emergence in the middle of the twentieth century, the exhausted and highly theorised Catholic birth control debate has been dominated by abstracted, theological argumentation. Contraception had always been deemed ‘intrinsically evil’ by the Catholic Church, but the introduction of the Pill in 1961 led many to believe this teaching would be overturned. Despite a secretive Papal Commission recommending the Church change its teaching, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the prohibition of birth control in 1968. The case for change that this Papal Commission for Birth Control presented to the Pope approached the subject in an intellectualised manner which placed little emphasis on the testimony of individual Catholic women. My research seeks to redress this convention, providing Catholic women with the opportunity to speak about their experiences and understandings of sexuality during the post-war years. In this paper, I suggest that oral history’s capacity to uncover the emotional and experiential components of these contraceptive decisions can provide a unique intervention in existing discussions about birth control within the Catholic community. In recognising the formative role of emotion in driving contraceptive behaviour, we can help rethink the way sexual morality is framed within the Catholic community.  

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

See our events programme for information about other seminars this term.

New Book by Jennifer Wallis

Jennifer Wallis‘s monograph Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum: Doctors, Patients, and Practices is out now!

Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum: Doctors, Patients, and Practices (Palgrave, 2017) considers how the body was examined – both before and after death – in the late Victorian asylum in Britain. Performing a chapter-by-chapter ‘dissection’ of the body, it considers how the patient’s skin, muscles, bones, brain, and bodily fluids were studied and came to inform contemporary theories about mental disease. Along the way, Wallis considers the historian’s emotional engagement with sources such as medical photographs, as well as how 19th-century asylum practice was shaped by interactions between doctor and patient.

Events Spring 2018

Lunchtime Seminars

These seminars will be a mixture of ‘brown bag’ (bring your own) and lunch provided. Whether lunch is provided is signalled in the descriptions below.

17 January:  David Geiringer (QMUL), 2.17 Arts Two. Lunch provided.

7 Feb: ‘Brown bag seminar’ (bring your own lunch), Linnea Tillema, ‘“An exercise in freedom”: Emotional work and norms of self-improvement in Sweden, 1960-1980s.’ 2.17 Arts Two

28 Feb: Will McMorran (QMUL), 3.16 Arts Two. Lunch provided.

14 March: Merridee Bailey (Oxford), ‘Formulaic Emotions: Searching Language for Meaning’. 2.17 Arts Two. Lunch provided.

28 March: ‘Brown bag seminar’ (bring your own lunch), Alex Esche (Max Planck, Berlin), ‘Protesting “in a Proper Spirit”: The Moralities and Subjectivities of Late Victorian Anti-Alien Agitation’, 3.16 Arts Two.

25 April: Mike Pettit (University of York, Ca), “The Affective Revolution? Hot Cognition and the Ends of Cold War Psychology.” 2.17 Arts Two. Lunch provided.

Arts Two is number 35 on this campus map. Mile End is easily accessible on the tube via the Central, District and Hammersmith&City lines.

Emotions in Modern British History Seminar: James Southern ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’.

*please note the change in date of this event*

Our second paper in the ‘Emotions in Modern British History’ series will be delivered on 22 November by James Southern (QMUL). James’s paper is titled ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’.

Abstract:

At the end of the 1960s, the sexual revolution arrived at the doors of the British Foreign Office. The partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts between men in 1967 meant that diplomats would have to decide whether or not to allow openly gay men to join the Diplomatic Service. Wary of recent high-profile diplomatic scandals associated with homosexuality like those of Guy Burgess in 1951 and John Vassall in 1962, the Foreign Office decided that homosexuality represented a security risk and therefore an automatic bar to employment in the Diplomatic Service – a policy which lasted until 1991. This paper uses Foreign Office files and oral history interviews to chart policymakers’ discussion around the introduction of the bar, analysing what definitions of “homosexuality” were used, why gay men were deemed unfit for service, and how the Foreign Office understood its policy in relation to the shifting social context of postwar Britain. The history of gender, sexuality and emotions within social elites is still a burgeoning field, and this paper draws on work by Martin Francis and Michael Roper in its approach. In its analysis of the Diplomatic Service sexuality bar, the paper aims to identify the types of emotional ‘communities’ institutionalised at the FCO which facilitated the maintenance of such an exclusionary policy. Heavily influenced by the gendering of Cold War diplomatic culture by the U.S. State Department, the Foreign Office hastily created an ill-defined and unenforceable bar on gay men and lesbians, from which much can be learned about the emotional economy of diplomacy, and the relationship between masculinity and elite professional life, in 1960s Britain.

No need to book. Lunch is provided.

The talk will take place in room 3.16, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

Other papers in this series include:

4pm, 6th December: Helen McCarthy ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

See our events programme for more information.

Emotions in Modern British History Seminar: Helen McCarthy, ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

Our final seminar this semester in this series will be delivered by Helen McCarthy (QMUL). Helen’s paper is titled ‘Graduate Mothers and Emotional Labour in 1960s Britain’.

Helen’s paper will be followed by the Centre’s Christmas drinks party. All are welcome.

The talk will take place in room 2.17, Arts Two, Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

Other papers in this series include:

1pm, 22nd November. James Southern ‘The ‘Spotting a Homosexual Checklist’: Masculinity, Homosexuality, and the British Foreign Office, 1965-1991’. 3.16 Arts 2.

See our events programme for more information.