Author Archives: raw792

Urban Avalanche: Crowds, Cities and Financial Markets (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

Professor Christian Borch, ‘Urban Avalanche: Crowds, Cities and Financial Markets’

According to late nineteenth-century crowd theory, modern cities are overwhelmed by crowds that carry away the urban inhabitants. The main mechanism suggested by fin-de-siècle sociologists to explain crowd behaviour is that of hypnotic suggestion, with people essentially being hypnotized by the crowd leader. This explanatory framework later fell into disrepute and together with it, classical crowd ideas were consigned to the dustbin of social theory. In this talk, I argue for resuscitating parts of the fin-de-siècle crowd theorization. First, I argue that the psychotherapy debates that inspired the use of the notion of hypnotic suggestion contain a more nuanced conception of individuality than that of individuals submitting entirely to the hypnotist. Instead, they give rise to a notion of ‘tensional individuality’, according to which individuality is given in a tensional relationship between mimetic features (imitating others) and anti-mimetic ones (some core independence or autonomy). That said, second, in crowd situations – or what I call ‘social avalanches’ – mimesis takes over and precisely this possibility constituted a major concern amongst many early twentieth-century urban sociologists, architects and urban planners. I shall discuss this with reference to Robert E. Park’s reflections on cities, including how he established connections between crowds, cities and financial markets, in effect seeing the latter as main sites for urban crowd dynamics. Third, and fast-forwarding to the present, I suggest that Park’s and others’ recognition of the links between crowds, cities and financial markets deserves renewed attention in the light of current developments towards fully automated trading. Specifically, I suggest that, like urban inhabitants, automated trading algorithms are characterized by tensional individuality just as they occasionally avalanche.
Christian Borch is Professor of Economic Sociology and Social Theory at the Copenhagen Business School and the PI of the ERC-funded AlgoFinance research project (http://info.cbs.dk/algofinance). His latest book is Social Avalanche (Cambridge UP, 2020).

This event is part of the 2020-2021 seminar series Crowds Affects, Cities, jointly convened by the Centre for the History of the Emotions and the QMUL City Centre.

To register your interest, please contact one of the convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith (t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk), Regan Koch (r.koch@gmail.com), and Pen Woods (p.woods@qmul.ac.uk) and we’ll send you the Zoom link.

The Crowd and Covid-19 (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

Prof Colin McFarlane, Department of Geography, University of Durham.

Wednesday 10th March 1pm, Zoom

The relation between the crowd and the city has been historically pivotal to our understanding of cities. How might we understand the impact of the pandemic on those relations? The pandemic has had radical impacts not only on the material geographies of crowds, but on the position of the crowd in popular and political imaginations. While state and municipal governance sought to ‘organise out’ the possibilities of crowd densities in the city throughout the pandemic, all kinds of anxieties and concerns became attached to the image and idea of the crowd. The longer-term implications remain unclear, but in this presentation I draw on ongoing research on the relationship between the pandemic and density to describe some of relations that are being attached to the crowd, and reflect on the potential consequences both for cities and urban research.

This event is part of the 2020-2021 seminar series Crowds Affects, Cities, jointly convened by the Centre for the History of the Emotions and the QMUL City Centre. To register your interest, please contact one of the convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith (t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk), Regan Koch (r.koch@gmail.com), and Pen Woods (p.woods@qmul.ac.uk).

Happy Together? The intimate publics of gay liberation in 1970s West Germany (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

Prof. Benno Gammerl, Department of History and Civilisation, European University Institute.

Becoming publicly visible as a gay or lesbian person could be tricky in the 1970s. First of all, what was this ominous public one was supposed to come out into? Claims to specific sexual identities were usually not broadcasted on the national news or printed in the local newspaper. Most people did not come out with a bold and grand gesture, but rather in small and careful steps. One specific setting that enabled such steps was the intimate public of gay and lesbian-feminist events or rallies.  A group or a band or a flock or a cohort or a squad or a bunch of activists and allies would often engender a sense of safety and solidarity vis-à-vis an inimical surrounding that allowed individuals to make what they describe as their first appearance in public. Looking at West Germany and based on oral history interviews the talk will explore the affective and emotional dynamics of these experiences. 

Benno Gammerl holds the chair for the history of gender and sexuality at the European University Institute in Florence. Before he taught Queer History as a DAAD lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Gammerl’s fields of expertise include the history of homosexualities in modern Germany, the history of empires and the history of emotions. His current research explores the interplay between migratory dynamics and attitudes towards sexual diversity in twentieth-century Europe. His most recent book on the emotional lives of gays and lesbians in West Germany comes out with Carl Hanser in 2021.

This event is part of the 2020-2021 seminar series Crowds Affects, Cities, jointly convened by the Centre for the History of the Emotions and the QMUL City Centre.

To register your interest, please contact one of the convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith (t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk), Regan Koch (r.koch@gmail.com), and Pen Woods (p.woods@qmul.ac.uk) and we’ll send you the Zoom link.

Sound, Knowledge and Space: the reggae sound system as an apparatus for the production of affective intensities (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

Professor Julian Henriques, Wednesday 27th January 1pm, Zoom

Recommended background viewing: 
Sound System Outernational #5 Naples, Italy (Astarbene, 2020,12 min)
https://vimeo.com/396139747
 
This talk proposes that sound waves, auditory mechanics and the propagation of sounding provide a useful model for understanding the production and transmission of affect. Feelings are literally vibratory. It takes the Jamaican dancehall sound system session as an apparatus for the production affective intensities. Here the audio engineers developed the highly skilled knowledge and practices, that I name as phonomorphic (sound-shaping) techniques, with which they use frequencies and amplitudes to “engineer” the vibes of the crowd. While from ancient times it has been appreciated that music communicates feelings and is freighted with emotions and associations, I argue that the sounding of the music provides an excellent analogue for the feeling of affect; both are non-representational. With the shared social experience of the space of the dancehall session volume (dB) or pressure equates with affective intensity, pitch with charge or excitement, auditory diffusion with affective transmission and rhythm or refrain with entrainment and attunement. “Feeling moved” and moving (dance) become different sides of the same coin. This dynamic situated, embodies and shared vibratory approach can be contrasted with more familiar visual relationships of reflection and gaze structured by the single point of view.

This event is part of the 2020-2021 seminar series Crowds Affects, Cities, jointly convened by the Centre for the History of the Emotions and the QMUL City Centre. To register your interest, please contact one of the convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith (t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk), Regan Koch (r.koch@gmail.com), and Pen Woods (p.woods@qmul.ac.uk).

Seminar Series 2020-2021: Crowds, Affects, Cities 

The Crowds, Affects, Cities seminar series continues through 2021. Jointly convened by QMUL Centre for the History of Emotions and the QMUL City Centre, the seminar explores crowds, emotions and urban space.
Please contact Regan (r.koch@qmul.ac.uk), Pen (p.woods@qmul.ac.uk) or Tiffany (t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk) for the Zoom details

Covid-19 has caused widespread disruption to the pleasures and possibilities of gathering in cities, bringing new forms of anxiety and uncertainty to urban encounters. As we make do in this time of social distancing, it seems a prime opportunity to assemble (online) and reflect on the intensities, emotions and experiences of urban crowds.

The seminar series aims to be interdisciplinary and international in scope, focused on 35 minute presentations with time for questions and discussion to follow. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

Register your interest by contacting one of the convenors below, and we’ll send you the Zoom link.

Convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith, Regan Koch, and Pen Woods

For more information, please contact

Tiffany t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk

Regan r.koch@qmul.ac.uk

Pen p.woods@qmul.ac.uk

___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Professor Julian Henriques, Wednesday 27th January 1pm, Zoom

“Sound, Knowledge and Space: the reggae sound system as an apparatus for the production affective intensities.”  
Recommended background viewing: 
Sound System Outernational #5 Naples, Italy (Astarbene, 2020,12 min)
https://vimeo.com/396139747
 
This talk proposes that sound waves, auditory mechanics and the propagation of sounding provide a useful model for understanding the production and transmission of affect. Feelings are literally vibratory. It takes the Jamaican dancehall sound system session as an apparatus for the production affective intensities. Here the audio engineers developed the highly skilled knowledge and practices, that I name as phonomorphic (sound-shaping) techniques, with which they use frequencies and amplitudes to “engineer” the vibes of the crowd. While from ancient times it has been appreciated that music communicates feelings and is freighted with emotions and associations, I argue that the sounding of the music provides an excellent analogue for the feeling of affect; both are non-representational. With the shared social experience of the space of the dancehall session volume (dB) or pressure equates with affective intensity, pitch with charge or excitement, auditory diffusion with affective transmission and rhythm or refrain with entrainment and attunement. “Feeling moved” and moving (dance) become different sides of the same coin. This dynamic situated, embodies and shared vibratory approach can be contrasted with more familiar visual relationships of reflection and gaze structured by the single point of view.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prof. Benno Gammerl, Department of History and Civilisation, European University Institute. Wednesday 24th February, 1pm, Zoom
“Happy Together? The intimate publics of gay liberation in 1970s West Germany”
[abstract to follow]
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prof. Colin McFarlane, Department of Geography, University of Durham. Wednesday 10 March, 1pm, Zoom
“The Crowd and Covid-19”
The relation between the crowd and the city has been historically pivotal to our understanding of cities. How might we understand the impact of the pandemic on those relations? The pandemic has had radical impacts not only on the material geographies of crowds, but on the position of the crowd in popular and political imaginations. While state and municipal governance sought to ‘organise out’ the possibilities of crowd densities in the city throughout the pandemic, all kinds of anxieties and concerns became attached to the image and idea of the crowd. The longer-term implications remain unclear, but in this presentation I draw on ongoing research on the relationship between the pandemic and density to describe some of relations that are being attached to the crowd, and reflect on the potential consequences both for cities and urban research.

7th April, 1pm BST

Dr Nida Kirmani (Lahore University)
Playing at the Boundary: Exploring the Relationship between Feminism and Fun in Karachi 

Khel Khel Mein (Playing at the Boundary) tells the story of three young people from the area of Lyari in Karachi–an area that is known for being one of the most conflict-ridden parts of the city. However, Lyari is also one of the oldest, most diverse and vibrant parts of the city. Each of the young people features in this documentary are pushing gender boundaries in their own unique ways. Mehreen is a champion boxer. Zulekha teaches girls and young women how to cycle and takes them out for regular rides, and Sidu is an activist who challenges gender roles and binaries. All three are struggling to bring a change in their communities and in society in general and having fun in the process. The session will include a screening of this short documentary and a discussion of the relationship between fun and feminism in Lyari and beyond.

Dr. Nida Kirmani is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Nida has published widely on issues related to gender, Islam, women’s movements, development and urban studies in India and Pakistan. She completed her PhD in 2007 from the University of Manchester in Sociology. Her book, Questioning ‘the Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality, was published in 2013 by Routledge. Her current research focuses on urban violence, gender and insecurity in the area of Lyari in Karachi.

5th May:  POSTPONED

Dr Karen Engle (University of Windsor, Canada) and Dr Yoke-Sum Wong (Alberta University of the Arts, Canada)
Thinking About Feeling: Once more with…

We will discuss our recent book project, Feelings of Structure: Explorations in Affect and our research-creation project and exhibition, Structures of Anticipation. The edited book addressed the built environment as spatial attunements. The essays explored the affective consciousness of spatial form/s that is at once social and personal – emergent and emerging and ever in process in an ‘interrelating continuity’. How do spatial forms contribute to, as Susan Lepselter writes, an ethnography of emergent feeling? How do we feel these spaces and world them – taking worlding as a way of apprehension and comprehension – giving it a structure that we make (non)sense of. What are the emergent feelings, strategies and practices that are integrated into our material and experiential world? Reversing Raymond Williams’ influential essay, “Structures of Feeling”, we ask how and in what way we could address the mixed experiences to which ‘the fixed forms do not speak at all’. We felt, to capture the traces of the experiences, the reverse phrasing, “feelings of structure,” was a more intriguing invitation to grasping the (un)/knowable.

The project Structures of Anticipation emerged out of working on the book as well as other related individual projects. The theme “anticipation” attended to the anxious unknowables of the times during the Trump years and before the pandemic happened. The theme hinged on the “sensation” of anticipation – circulating forces that build up, the turning of the corner, hope, reverie or of impending dread, anxiety, trepidation, as we refreshed our social media feed – and how it affected our daily material lives. 

Dr Karen Engle is Associate Professor at the University of Windsor, Canada, in the School of Creative Arts, Windsor, Ont. Canada

Dr Yoke-Sum Wong is Associate Professor at the School of Critical and Creative Studies at the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly ACAD) in Calgary, Ab. Canada

19th May, 5pm BST (NOTE TIME CHANGE)

Dr Deborah Gould (University of California)
Passions & Danger in Trump’s Time and After

This talk is animated by my own recently roused fear of the crowd. I offer a way to think about politics and emotion in a moment that has witnessed handwringing across the political spectrum about the so-called masses’ unruly passions dangerously seeping into the political realm and bringing with them Brexit, Trump, and the explosion of rightwing authoritarianism across the globe. Classical liberal and democratic theorists have a response to the fear of the crowd: the political realm requires rational deliberation, and thus passions that might interfere must and can be exorcised, or at least sequestered from public, political life. What, then, should we conclude in this moment where it has become obvious, if it wasn’t before, that the political is awash in passions, and some very frightening passions at that? Faced with the madding crowds of the Brexit/Trump/QAnon era, liberal and democratic theory might lead us to the conclusion that liberal institutions have not and cannot keep our unruly passions in check, that democracy thus cannot work, that, in short, people’s passions make them, us, unfit for democracy. But is it not possible to acknowledge that the political is saturated with emotion without going down the crowd theorists’ path that denies the demos our political capacities? My aim with this talk is political as much as conceptual: we need a better rendering of politics and emotion in order to grasp the current moment. Through an exploration of crowds, affect, and the political, the talk considers left activist compositional tasks amid the felt contingency of the current moment.
 
Deborah Gould, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the author of Moving Politics: Emotion and Act Up’s Fight Against Aids (University of Chicago Press, 2009). She is currently writing a book titled Composing Collectivities: Appetite, Encounters, and the Not-Yet of Politics.

 

Collectivity and Affect in Crisis Times: Dancing in Berlin, 1989-2020 (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

The Fall of the Berlin Wall launched a wave of ecstatic raving and clubbing across Berlin. That wave’s force has carried the city’s clubbing scene right through to today—although it has met an unforeseen break in this year of Covid restrictions. For thirty years, the thump of bass has never gone so silent. In this paper, I’ll put my previous work on ecstasy and melancholy in Berlin around 1989 in dialogue with recent developments, as clubbers, DJs and producers contend with a moment in which collectives and crowds have become sites of anxiety. I’ll consider the attempts to replicate the clubbing experience online, as well as the irrepressible raving energies that have seen illegal parties take place against stringent public health measures.

Ben Gook is lecturer in cultural studies at the University of Melbourne. He was previously an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin and an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion in Melbourne. Relevant publications includeDivided Subjects, Invisible Borders: Re-unified Germany after 1989 (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015) and “Ecstatic Melancholic: Ambivalence, Electronic Music and Social Change around the Fall of the Berlin Wall” in Emotions: History, Culture, Society (2017). He also has a forthcoming book, Feeling Alienated: How Alienation Returned in Contemporary Capitalism, which will be available in the Histories of Emotions and the Senses series with Cambridge University Press in 2021.

 

The State of Unrest: Crowds, Protests, Atmospheres (Crowds, Affects, Cities Seminar Series)

Dr Illan Wall (Law, Warwick University) – The State of Unrest: Crowds, Protests, Atmospheres

In late 1935, Georges Bataille could feel it. He addressed the Contre-Attaque group as Paris was consumed by protest and counter-protest: ‘What drives the crowds into the street is the emotion directly aroused by striking events in the atmosphere of a storm, it is the contagious emotion that, from house to house, from suburb to suburb, suddenly turns a hesitating man into a frenzied being’. The city had become the bearer of new affects. The atmosphere of the storm gathered over it. The clouds were dark with threat, anxiety and excitement. As the protests, riots, marches and strikes continued, this crisis of feeling spread. It thickened. It began to stick to bodies, condensing in every little interaction. The affects of the disorder spread through the city, through the country. France was gripped by a state of unrest. In this paper I will develop the core analysis of my forthcoming book Law and Disorder (Routledge, 2021), I will explore the ways in which atmospheres of crowded protest can seep out from protests or occupations. How the streets around a crowded event can fill with different feelings, and how those feelings can very quickly spread out around a city, a country, a region and at times even around the world. It is about how these affects can be felt among the populace as the opening of new (exciting and/or terrifying) political, social and legal possibilities. In short, I will suggest that in the state of unrest what is socially and politically possible can be radically redefined.

Illan rua Wall is a Reader at the Warwick Law School. He works on questions of unrest, protest and affective atmospheres. His next book is due out soon, entitled Law and Disorder (Routledge 2021). Illan is one of the founding editors of the blog criticallegalthinking.com and the open access publisher Counterpress. He sits on the editorial board of Law and Critique, and is the Co-Director of Warwick’s Centre for Critical Legal Studies.

Seminar Series 2020-2021: Crowds, Affects, Cities

The QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions and The QMUL City Centre are jointly convening a seminar series in 2020-1 to explore crowds, emotions and urban space.

Covid-19 has caused widespread disruption to the pleasures and possibilities of gathering in cities, bringing new forms of anxiety to urban encounters and witnessing crowd scenes, whether lockdown protests or the jubilant celebrations after the US election. As we make do in this time of social distancing, it seems a prime opportunity to assemble (online) and reflect on the intensities, emotions and experiences of urban crowds.

The seminar series aims to be interdisciplinary and international in scope, focused on 35 minute presentations with time for questions and discussion to follow. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

Register your interest by contacting emotions@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll send you the Zoom link.

Convenors: Tiffany Watt Smith, Regan Koch, and Pen Woods

For more information, please contact

Tiffany t.k.watt-smith@qmul.ac.uk

Regan r.koch@qmul.ac.uk

Pen p.woods@qmul.ac.uk

Wednesday 2nd December 1-2pm

Dr Illan Wall (Law, Warwick University)

 The State of Unrest: Crowds, Protests, Atmospheres

In late 1935, Georges Bataille could feel it. He addressed the Contre-Attaque group as Paris was consumed by protest and counter-protest: ‘What drives the crowds into the street is the emotion directly aroused by striking events in the atmosphere of a storm, it is the contagious emotion that, from house to house, from suburb to suburb, suddenly turns a hesitating man into a frenzied being’. The city had become the bearer of new affects. The atmosphere of the storm gathered over it. The clouds were dark with threat, anxiety and excitement. As the protests, riots, marches and strikes continued, this crisis of feeling spread. It thickened. It began to stick to bodies, condensing in every little interaction. The affects of the disorder spread through the city, through the country. France was gripped by a state of unrest. In this paper I will develop the core analysis of my forthcoming book Law and Disorder (Routledge, 2021), I will explore the ways in which atmospheres of crowded protest can seep out from protests or occupations. How the streets around a crowded event can fill with different feelings, and how those feelings can very quickly spread out around a city, a country, a region and at times even around the world. It is about how these affects can be felt among the populace as the opening of new (exciting and/or terrifying) political, social and legal possibilities. In short, I will suggest that in the state of unrest what is socially and politically possible can be radically redefined.

Illan rua Wall is a Reader at the Warwick Law School. He works on questions of unrest, protest and affective atmospheres. His next book is due out soon, entitled Law and Disorder (Routledge 2021). Illan is one of the founding editors of the blog criticallegalthinking.com and the open access publisher Counterpress. He sits on the editorial board of Law and Critique, and is the Co-Director of Warwick’s Centre for Critical Legal Studies.

Wednesday 16th December, 8pm – NOTE DIFFERENT TIME

 Dr Ben Gook (History, University of Melbourne)

 Collectivity and Affect in Crisis Times: Dancing in Berlin, 1989-2020

The Fall of the Berlin Wall launched a wave of ecstatic raving and clubbing across Berlin. That wave’s force has carried the city’s clubbing scene right through to today—although it has met an unforeseen break in this year of Covid restrictions. For thirty years, the thump of bass has never gone so silent. In this paper, I’ll put my previous work on ecstasy and melancholy in Berlin around 1989 in dialogue with recent developments, as clubbers, DJs and producers contend with a moment in which collectives and crowds have become sites of anxiety. I’ll consider the attempts to replicate the clubbing experience online, as well as the irrepressible raving energies that have seen illegal parties take place against stringent public health measures.

Ben Gook is lecturer in cultural studies at the University of Melbourne. He was previously an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin and an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion in Melbourne. Relevant publications includeDivided Subjects, Invisible Borders: Re-unified Germany after 1989 (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015) and “Ecstatic Melancholic: Ambivalence, Electronic Music and Social Change around the Fall of the Berlin Wall” in Emotions: History, Culture, Society (2017). He also has a forthcoming book, Feeling Alienated: How Alienation Returned in Contemporary Capitalism, which will be available in the Histories of Emotions and the Senses series with Cambridge University Press in 2021.

Sugar, Sugar: The Taste of Colonialism. Poetry vs Colonialism Workshop (Being Human 2020)

It may taste delicious and sweet but how sweet is the history of sugar? Learn about the interlinked histories of slavery, sugar plantations, processing, export and consumption from academic Dr Malcolm Cocks, Dulwich College and the University of the West Indies.

We’ll consider the taste of sugar in its different states and see what raw sugar cane plants and sugar beet looks like. Appreciate the art of spun sugar and sugar sculptures. Meet Jamaican British poet Keith Jarrett and work with him to produce responses to the sickly taste of colonialism and dark futures of sugar.

This event is part of the series ‘Poetry Versus Colonialism’ which is part of Being Human Festival 2020.

Smoke Screen: The Smell of Colonialism. Poetry vs Colonialism Workshop (Being Human 2020)

What is the aroma of colonialism? In this event you will be introduced to the pungent history of tobacco cultivation and trade, slavery and colonialism, by academic Professor Nick Ridout from Queen Mary University of London.

Learn about the Atlantic Slave Trade and the interlinked histories of tobacco cultivation and export in the USA and the UK. Guyanese and Scottish poets Sandra Agard and Miriam Nash will guide you in an at home smelling workshop.

Experience the aromas involved in the brutal tobacco trade and discover how creating poems helps process and articulate complex emotions about identity and our relationship to this aromatic and addictive product with a problematic past and future.

Book your place here

This event is part of the series ‘Poetry Versus Colonialism’ which is part of Being Human Festival 2020