Author Archives: julesevans

Circuits of Feeling in The Age of Empathy, with Dr Carolyn Pedwell

With the rise of the ‘science of empathy’ in the wake of the discovery of mirror neurons, we have seen a veritable return to biology, ethology, neuroscience, genetics and various evolutionary theories to explain not only empathic circuits of feeling within the human body, but also the emotional politics of contemporary societies internationally.

This paper grapples with the implications of the multiple layers of translation involved in politicising the science of empathy. Through a critical reading of the leading primatologist Frans de Waal’s bestselling book, The Age of Empathy (2010), I explore how the translation of scholarly scientific research on empathy into the language of popular science often involves establishing links between the biological workings of the individual organism and the health of the body politic.

In making such analogies, these translations posit homeostasis and equilibrium not only as necessary for the optimum functioning of the individual body, but also as vital to the flourishing of the social body – a move which, I contend, frequently works in the interests of maintaining the neoliberal status quo and the social and geo-political hierarchies and exclusions that underscore it.

While authors like de Waal aim to keep biology separate from ideology, culture and politics, their own scientific claims work to support a political vision premised on a version of empathy that correlates with neoliberal capitalism’s demand for an enterprising and emotionally adaptable citizenry animated by self-interest and self-responsibility. As the paper argues, however, this is not the only possible or plausible translation of science of empathy.

In this vein, I explore how the circuits of feeling de Waal describes might be interpreted in ways that contest, rather than uphold, biological essentialism and disrupt, instead of solidify, the oppressive logics of contemporary forms of neoliberal governmentality to develop what Elizabeth A. Wilson refers to as ‘a critically empathic alliance with neurology’. Indeed, when read against the grain, particular strands of contemporary neuroscience and ethology might productively complement critical cultural, political and psychoanalytic analyses of emotion and affect, contributing to a framework for conceptualising affective translation that is critically attuned to the links between empathy, materiality and power transnationally.

Dr Carolyn Pedwell is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies/Cultural Sociology at the University of Kent. You can see a video of Carolyn speaking about her book on empathy, Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy, here.

See also Carolyn’s post on this subject on the History of Emotions Blog.

Convict Tattoos: An Intimate Reading, by Dr Helen Rogers

On arrival in the penal colony, Van Diemen’s Land, convict exiles were grilled about their offending histories, occupations and family ties while their bodies were inspected for distinguishing characteristics. The resulting convict indents thus preserved the penal state’s biographical record on each offender with snatches of their responses to interrogation. Unwittingly, however, the authorities also captured an alternative form of personal testimony by transcribing the tattoos with which many convicts had adorned their bodies.

This paper proposes a method of ‘intimate reading’ using multiple record linkage to decode the symbolic and emotional worlds of the convicted via their tattoos. Immersive reading of this kind can help us reconstruct the agency and sensibility of those who have left few traces of personal testimony but whose behaviour was captured in abstract information garnered by officialdom. The paper focuses on convict men sentenced at Great Yarmouth in the 1830s and 1840s, and argues their elaborate tattoos spectacularly depicted the men they felt themselves to be. As in the sign of the Hope and Anchor that many convicts wore, tattoos anchored the Yarmouth men in the life they had known – their loved ones, trade, sports and passions – as they entered an unknown land.

Dr Helen Rogers is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, and the author of the blog Conviction: Stories From a Nineteenth-Century Prison.

Reading Emotions: New community book group

Sally Holloway and Jane Mackleworth are excited to announce their new community reading group:  ‘READING EMOTIONS: LOVE IN FICTION 1750-1950’

It’s aimed at anyone who likes reading and would like to discuss the books they have read. We will be reading neglected works of fiction published by British women between c. 1750 and 1950, as part of the Read Women campaign.

The group is specifically aimed at members of the public so please invite your neighbours, friends and family members to take part. Men and women of all ages are welcome to join.
We will meet one Friday per month 6-7.30pm from April-September 2015. Meetings will take place in the café space at the Bromley by Bow Centre in east London overlooking ‘Bob’s Park’. Books, hot drinks and refreshments will be provided free of charge. We are able to subsidise transport for less able or elderly members.

‘Reading Emotions’ is run by Sally Holloway and Jane Mackelworth of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, funded by the Queen Mary Centre for Public Engagement and subsidised by Oxford University Press.

Our first book is Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (1932), which can be posted to your home address. To join the group or find out more, please email Sally and Jane.

Chris Millard supports ‘parity of esteem’ in Parliamentary role

Chris Millard, postdoctoral researcher at the Centre and one of the pioneers of the ‘Lost Emotions’ project, recently spent three months on secondment at the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology, where he researched and wrote about the issues of ‘parity of esteem’ between physical and mental health. His work resulted in him co-authoring an editorial for the British Medical Journal, as well as writing a post for the history of emotions blog reflecting on the experience.

New book: ‘The Transformation of the Psyche in British Primary Care 1880 – 1970’, by Rhodri Hayward

9781474247931The Centre is proud to announce the publication of a new book by Rhodri Hayward.

Conflicting models of selfhood have become central to debates over modern medicine. Yet we still lack a clear historical account of how this psychological sensibility came to be established.

The Transformation of the Psyche in British Primary Care, 1880-1970 remedies this situation by demonstrating that there is nothing inevitable about the current connection between health, identity and personal history. It traces the changing conception of the psyche in Britain over the last two centuries and it demonstrates how these changes were rooted in transformed patterns of medical care. The shifts from private medicine through to National Insurance and the National Health Service fostered different kinds of relationship between doctor and patient and different understandings of psychological distress. The Transformation of the Psyche in British Primary Care, 1880-1970 examines these transformations and, in so doing, provides new critical insights into our modern sense of identity and changing notions of health that will be of great value to anyone interested in the modern history of British medicine.

Stoic Week 2014 conference at the Centre

Over 300 people attended ‘Stoicism Today’, a public conference funded and organized by the Centre. The event is part of Stoic Week – a week of public activities exploring how people can use Stoicism today.

Speakers included Professor Chris Gill of Exeter University, Professor Angie Hobbs of Sheffield University, Dr John Sellars of Kings College London, Nikki Cameron of HMP Low Moss, and Jules Evans, policy director of the Centre, who organized the event.

Stoicism Today is a three-year-old project researching how people use Stoic philosophy in modern life, and how it inspired Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Stoic Week is an online course which people can follow around the world – 2500 people took part this year.

The project has received coverage in publications including the Today programme on Radio 4, Newsweek, the Guardian, the Spectator, Forbes, ABC Australia and the New York Times.

You can watch videos from the event here.

Clare Whistler and ‘vessels of tears’

Clare Whistler’s artist-in-residency, which was a collaboration linked to Thomas Dixon’s work on the history of weeping, investigated the emotional history of water – ‘Weather, Tears, and Waterways’. The residency is documented in a series of blog posts explaining the thinking and outcomes leading up to the ‘Vessels of Tears’ event in May 2014, including a post by PhD candidate Hetta Howes writing about the emotional meanings of water for women in the middle ages. We also worked with audio producer Natalie Steed to make three podcasts recording various aspects of the project, including an original composition by Kerry Andrew.

Conference: ‘Histories and Theories of the Unconscious’

A day conference on the unconscious mind from its early-modern philosophical origins to its diverse articulations in literature, art and social policy, and its controversial history within the psychoanalytic tradition.

Speakers:

Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary UL), Alexandra Bacopoulos-Viau (New York University), Matt Ffytche (University of Essex), Andreas Mayer (Centre A. Koyré, CNRS/EHESS Paris), Madeleine Wood (Queen Mary UL), Sonu Shamdasani (University College London), John Fletcher (University of Warwick),Elsa Richardson (Queen Mary UL), Emma Sutton (Queen Mary UL), Rhodri Hayward (Queen Mary UL), Arthur Eaton (University College London).

A book of abstracts is available here as a PDF.

Venue:

Queen Mary University of London. Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Arts 2 Building, Lecture Theatre.

A sandwich lunch will be provided.

Ticket price: £15 (to cover catering costs).

Any queries? Please email e.richardson@qmul.ac.uk

Seasonal Affective Disorder at 30: podcasts and interviews

As the nights drew in, during November, we continued our more melancholy train of thought with a podcast produced by Natalie Steed to mark the 30th anniversary of ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’. This podcast was a collaboration with our QMUL colleagues in the History of Modern Biomedicine Research group, headed by Professor Tilli Tansey, and arose from a joint witness seminar.

Earlier in the year Jules Evans had interviewed Norman E. Rosenthal, who wrote the first paper naming ‘SAD’ in 1984, for this blog. The transcript of the SAD Witness Seminar is now published and available to read in full.