On Wednesday 16 November Ayesha Nathoo will give a paper tiled ‘“It does need self-discipline”: Health education, expertise, and the politics of relaxation in 1970s Britain’. 

Abstract:

In the postwar decades, therapeutic relaxation techniques proliferated as a means of counteracting various maladies commonly associated with the pressures of modern Western living. By the early 1970s in Britain, instruction in neuro-muscular relaxation was widely available through the mass media, self-help books, group classes and in clinical settings. This talk will examine the pedagogy of relaxation, including its material and audio-visual culture. It will ask how practitioners negotiated and communicated their expertise, and how patients learnt and applied the techniques and determined their therapeutic value. In doing so, it will demonstrate how relaxation ideology helped to engender a socio-political shift towards promoting ‘healthy lifestyles’ and individual responsibility for health.

All talks are free, booking not needed. Lunch will be provided.
https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/news/autumn-term-events/

The talk will take place in the Arts Two building (room 3.20), Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

On Wednesday 9 November, Hannah Newton will give a paper titled:  ‘Doleful Groans & Sad Lookes’: Witnessing Illness in Early Modern England’.

Abstract:

In early modern England, the sick were usually looked after at home, by relatives and friends. While valuable work has been undertaken on the practical roles of family members in the care and treatment of patients, the emotional and sensory experiences of these individuals have been largely overlooked. My paper seeks to fill this gap by asking what it was like to witness the illness of a loved one. Drawing on sources such as diaries and letters, I show that relatives and close friends shared the suffering of the patient, a phenomenon known as ‘fellow-feeling’ in this period. So acute was their emotional distress upon observing their loved one’s pains, family members claimed to feel something akin to the physical suffering itself. This finding supports the thesis of the scholars Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Joanna Bourke, who have challenged Elaine Scarry’s famous assertion that pain is an ‘unsharable experience’. Taking a new, sensory approach, I aver that it was chiefly through the ears and eyes that relatives and friends came to share the patient’s sufferings: hearing patients’ ‘doleful groans’ or seeing their ‘sad lookes’ occasioned extreme anguish. These discussions shed fresh light on the meaning of the emotion of love: the ‘signe…of true Love’, wrote the French philosopher and theologian Nicholas Coeffeteau (1574-1623), was that ‘friends rejoyce & grieve for the same things’.

All talks are free, booking not needed. Lunch will be provided.
https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/news/autumn-term-events/

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

Pathological versus Aesthetic Listening: From a Philosophical, Medical and Psychiatric Perspective around 1850
Andrea Korenjak (Austrian Academy of Sciences).

Without doubt, Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904) is regarded as one of the most influential music critics and pivotal musical thinkers of the 19th century. In his famous book On the Musically-Beautiful (1st edition in 1854), Hanslick devotes a whole chapter to the “aesthetic comprehension of music”, which he differentiates sharply from “pathological listening”. Remarkably enough, he refers far more frequently to a “pathological form” of music perception than to “pathogenic music”.

Whereas the “aesthetic listener” would listen for the sake of music or the composition, respectively, according to Hanslick, the “pathological listener” would enjoy music “half-awake” and “snuggled into an armchair” rather than follow music’s structure or compositional technique. Essentially, “pathological listening” is characterized by Hanslick as a kind of “enthusiastic hearing”, in other words, hearing with passion or passionate listening. According to Hanslick, however, the purpose of music is neither to express nor to provoke emotions.

Apart from his reflections on a “pathological form of listening”, Hanslick is also aware of the many successful attempts to integrate music into psychiatry around 1850, even though he doubts its compelling evidence. Hanslick deems these attempts rich in “interesting curiosities”, but unreliable in observation and nonscientific in explanation.

In my paper I want to bring up the following themes and questions for discussion:

• What did Hanslick mean by “aesthetic-” and “pathological listening” and what concept of “pathology” did he refer to?
• How was music applied in psychiatry in Prague and Vienna, and what might Hanslick have known about it?
• How was music’s beneficial effect on the mentally ill explained from a medical and psychiatric standpoint around 1850 and also from Hanslick’s perspective?

The paper is related to my current project “Music, Medicine and Psychiatry in Vienna (c. 1780–1850)” at the Institute for the History of Art and Musicology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, generously sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund [P 27287].

All talks are free, booking not needed. Lunch will be provided.
https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/news/autumn-term-events/

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

This year’s Annual Lecture will be given by Professor Stephen Brooke (University of York, CA). His lecture is  titled  ‘Hate and Fear: Emotion, Politics and Race in 1980s London’ and will take place on 6 December 2016 at 6.30pm in the Arts Two Lecture Theatre.

Abstract:

‘Hate and Fear? Emotions, Politics and Race in 1980s London’ will be an exploration of the role emotion played in race relations in 1980s London. It will examine incidents of racial harassment and violence on housing estates in London between 1981 and 1986 and relates those incidents to the history and theory of emotions, the political history of postwar Britain and our understanding of everyday life. The lecture will stress that understanding emotion is critical to comprehending the politics of race in London. The lecture will also reflect upon the broader role emotion plays in politics.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Arts Two building. Attendance is free but please book your place on Eventbrite. We look forward to seeing you there!