Author Archives: helenstark

Registration now open – Annual Lecture

Registration is now open for our Annual Lecture! Book your free ticket on Eventbrite.

Evening Seminar and Drinks Reception

Music and Emotion Concert

What does music intend to mean and provoke? What does it mean to you? How differently do we react and respond to music based on circumstance and what you know about it? How does it affect your emotions?

This event draws you, the listener, proactively into some highly evocative music from a variety of perspectives. Some you will know about, some you will learn about, and some you will discover from different perspectives. We want to know what ‘emotions’ are provoked within you. We can only now tell you that one of the works will be by Claude Debussy. Be prepared for magical musical surprises!

To guide us all in our journey, outstanding musicians Lisa Nelsen (flute), David le Page (violin/viola) and Eleanor Turner (harp) are joined by historian of emotions and music Dr Marie Louise Herzfeld Schild. This event is supported by the QMUL Centre for Public Engagement.

Tickets £7, £3 for concessions.

Tiffany Watt Smith at Salon London

On Thursday 22 September, Tiffany Watt Smith will be talking about nostalgia and history at Salon London event on memory at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden (with geneticist Mark Rutherford and memory coach Mark Channon). Doors and Martinis 7pm.

Get your ticket online

Tiffany Watt Smith on BBC Radio 4

Tiffany Watt Smith has made two recent appearances on BBC Radio 4:

On 30 August 2016 she appeared on Making History talking about the history of anger
On 20 September 2016 appeared on BBC Radio 4 Making History, discussing the Victorian origins of our modern concept of boredom.

Museum of the Normal

From angst-ridden teenage letters to agony aunts to concerned posts in online parenting forums, it’s clear that as a society we are haunted by a fear of being labelled abnormal. But who gets to define what’s normal? It is really something to aspire to? And is worrying about ‘being normal’… normal? Or does it have a history all of its own?

At this drop-in late event at Barts Pathology Museum, led by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, visitors will enter the ‘land of the abnormal’: a pop-up world of games, activities, talks and performances addressing different aspects of the history of normalcy and the normative. Expect lost emotions, historical psychometric tests, themed refreshments, arts activities, history of medicine talks and tours of the pathology specimens.

This event is part of the AHRC Being Human Festival of the Humanities, and supported by the AHRC and Queen Mary Centre for Public Engagement.

Autumn Term Events

Lunchtime Seminars

All are welcome to our lunchtime seminars. There’s no need to book and lunch is provided.

Wednesday 19 October, 1pm
Pathological Listening and Aesthetics (title tbc),
Andrea Korenjak (Austrian Academy of Sciences). Venue: Arts Two, Room 2.17.

Wednesday 9 November, 1pm
‘Doleful Groans & Sad Lookes’: Witnessing Illness in Early Modern England
Hannah Newton (University of Reading). Venue: Arts Two, Room 2.17.

Wednesday 16 November, 1pm
“It does need self-discipline”: Health education, expertise, and the politics of relaxation in 1970s Britain,
Ayesha Nathoo (Exeter University). Venue: Arts Two, Room 3.20.

Wednesday 7 December, 1pm
Caduti in Acqua: Lifesaving and the Public Sphere in the 18th Century
David Lederer (National University of Ireland Maynooth), Venue: Arts Two, Room 2.17.

Wednesday 14 December, 1pm
An Encyclopaedia of Spaces and their Emotional Contents and Discontents through Time
Katrina O’Loughlin (Australian Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion), Venue: TBC

Evening Seminars

Free evening talks on the history of the emotions. Talks start at 6.30pm, with refreshments provided beforehand. All welcome.

Tuesday 25 October, 6pm
Emotional community or bundle of emotions? High-running feelings in Singles magazine, 1977-1982, Zoe Strimpel (University of Sussex). Venue: Arts Two, Room 2.17.
Book online at: http://emotionalcommunity.eventbrite.co.uk

Tuesday 22 November, 6pm
Emotions and Cancer Diagnosis: Patient Experiences past and present. Elizabeth Toon (University of Manchester) and Sue Ziebland (Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford).
Venue: Arts Two, Room 2.17.
Book online at: http://emotionscancer.eventbrite.co.uk

Arts Two is building 35 on this campus map. Mile End is the closest tube station, on the District, Hammersmith and City and Central lines.

Richard Firth-Godbehere article in Gizmodo

Richard Firth-Godbehere has published an article in Gizmodo today titled ‘Cry me a Driver: Why Computers Fail at Detecting Emotions.’ You can read an excerpt on the Emotions Blog and the whole article at Gizmodo.

Richard Firth-Godbehere in Guardian podcast

‘What is love – and what does it have to do with meeting a bear in the woods? In the first of a five-part series, Dr Kevin Fong and Nathalie Nahai unpick the causes of emotions. But where’s the best place to start – history, culture, society or our bodies?’. These are the questions posed by The Guardian’s podcast ‘Brainwaves: The Science of Emotion’, which features the Centre’s Richard Firth-Godbehere.

Save the Date – Centre for the History of the Emotions Annual Lecture

We are delighted to announce that Professor Stephen Brooke (York University) will give the Centre for the History of the Emotions Annual Lecture for 2016 on Tuesday 6 December at 6.30pm in the Arts Two Lecture Theatre, QMUL (Mile End Campus). Professor Brooke’s lecture is provisionally titled ‘Fear and Hate? Emotion, Politics and Race in 1980s London’.

Watch this space for further details – including registration – and put the date in your diaries!