Juan Zaragoza, (Institute of Philosophy – Madrid), explores how material cultural studies could be helpful for historians in the study of the emotions, drawing on an exploration of the emotional experience of incurable patients in 19th Century Spain.
For further information see: Lunchtime Seminars (2011)
This series, running in December 2010 and January 2011, was organised by a Wellcome Trust-funded working group at Warwick University and Queen Mary, University of London.
Each seminar took place at the Wellcome Trust in London, from 12pm – 5pm.
3 December 2010
Service Users
Peter Barham, Diana Rose, Peter Campbell
17 December 2010
Psychiatric Science
David Goldberg, Hugh Freeman, David Clark
17 January 2011
Clinical Psychology
John Hall
31 January 2011
Policy and Care
Jim Symington, Peter Bartlett, Trevor Turner
October-December 2011
You are invited to attend a unique series of seminars that promise both fascinating insights into a diverse range of topics in medical history, and also a glimpse into a little known London museum. Housed within the grounds of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at West Smithfield, the museum holds a broad range of pathological specimens, some of which date from the late 1700s, and the papers programmed all speak in some way to this collection, as well as to each other. We hope you will able to join us for what promises to be a stimulating series of conversations.
Events are on Wednesdays and start at 5.30pm (doors open from 5pm) and end at 7.00pm unless otherwise stated. Wine and nibbles provided. For further information see: Barts Pathology Events [PDF]
14 December
David Ross (The Army Health Unit, Camberley) will present on public health and the military and Professor Edgar Jones (Kings College London) will speak on shell-shock and its representation in film.
12 October
Documentary filmmaker and producer Phil Stein will show excerpts from and speak on the making of Meet the Elephant Man(2010)
19 October – 6pm start, 7.30pm finish
Professor Tilli Tansey (Queen Mary) and Professor Brian Hurwitz (King College London) speaking on medical narratives and museum voices
9 November
Philip Ball (University of Cambridge) and a medical artist will speak on the history of medical illustration and their current practice
16 November
Dr Keir Waddington (Cardiff University) will speak on ‘Dying Scientifically: Gothic Romances and London’s Teaching Hospitals’. Dr Sam Alberti (The Royal College of Surgeon) and Dr Fay Bound Alberti (Queen Mary) will present on ‘Body Parts in Bart’s’
23 November
Dr Carmen Mangion and Dr Louise Hide from the Birkbeck Pain Project will speak on ‘Rhetorics of Pain in Nineteenth-Century Convent Necrologies’ be speaking on ‘Pain and Neurosyphilis’
30 November
Professor Sharon Ruston (University of Salford) will speak on ‘Shelly and Davy and the Bart’s Medical Archive’ and Professor Iwan Rhys Morus (University of Aberystwyth) will present on ‘Frankenstein and Vitality’
Jessica Riskin is Professor of History at Stanford University and author of Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment. In this talk, she introduces her current book project, Mind out of Matter: The Animal-Machine from Descartes to Darwin.
Her draft paper is available here: Riskin on the Animal Machine
International Interdisciplinary Conference, with key-notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford) and Allan Young (McGill)
16-17 June 2011, Queen Mary, University of London
Conference Programme [PDF]
Book of Abstracts [PDF]
Keynote Speakers:
Sally Shuttleworth (St Anne’s College, Oxford University, UK)
‘Childhood Passion in the Nineteenth Century’
Allan Young (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
‘Out of the Shadows: Schadenfreude and Human Nature’
The Centre for the History of the Emotions and Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies jointly hosts a one-day research colloquium on the theme of emotional transmission in the long nineteenth century.
Speakers: Isobel Armstrong (Birkbeck), Geoffrey Cantor (University of Leeds & UCL), Thomas Dixon (QMUL), Helen Groth (University of New South Wales), Susan Lanzoni (Wellesley College), Louise Lee (KCL), Alexandra Lewis (University of Aberdeen), Shane McCorristine (National University of Ireland & University of Cambridge), Gregory Tate (University of Surrey), Paul White (University of Cambridge) & Cheryce von Xylander (Technische Universität Darmstadt).
For further details, see: Wandering Feelings Programme
‘Whether in the reception of rousing political oratory like that of de Gaulle or Martin Luther King or in the motivations of demonstrators in popular uprisings like those in Tunisia and Egypt, there is no denying that emotion and politics are connected. Nonetheless, criticism of political debate and discourse as emotionally (rather than rationally) based is ubiquitous and emotion is often presented as a negative factor in politics. Public Passion shows that reason and emotion are not mutually exclusive and restores the legitimacy of shared emotion in political life. Public Passion traces the role of emotion in political thought from its prominence in classical sources, through its resuscitation by Montesquieu, to the present moment. Combining intellectual history, philosophy, and political theory, Rebecca Kingston develops a sophisticated account of collective emotion that demonstrates how popular sentiment is compatible with debate, pluralism, and individual agency and shows how emotion shapes the tone of interactions among citizens. She also analyzes the ways in which emotions are shared and transmitted among citizens of a particular regime, paying particular attention to the connection between political institutions and the psychological dispositions that they foster. Public Passion presents illuminating new ways to appreciate the forms of popular will and reveals that emotional understanding by citizens may in fact be the very basis through which a commitment to principles of justice can be sustained.’
‘Queering the History of Marriage: the Reception of a Castrato Husband in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, by Helen Berry (Newcastle)
Joint event with QM Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies.
Jenny Nyberg, MA in archaeology, BA in History, is an associate research student at the Centre of the History and Emotions, usually based at Stockholm University as a PhD Candidate in archaeology. Her research investigates beliefs, emotions and attitudes towards death in early modern Sweden (ca AD 1500-1800) by studying the material remains of acts performed during the burial ritual. By looking at how the dead body was prepared, dressed and adorned, and what objects were included with the dead in the coffin, we can study the metaphorical understandings of death and acts that were driven by beliefs and emotions. This paper aims at presenting the results of Nyberg’s research so far and also to invite to a discussion of the theoretical possibilities of tracing emotions and beliefs through an archaeological material i.e. the material traces of actions.
You can watch the film here.
This was one of a series of events as part of the AHRC-funded ‘Embodied Emotions’ project.
See also:
Embodied Emotions AHRC webpage.
Embodied Emotions leaflet [PDF]
Feeling Differently’ Report by Thomas Dixon [PDF}