Events
Past Events
Thursday 21st November, 2013
1pm, Arts 2
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.
Saturday 16th November, 2013
9am, Mile End Campus
Altered Consciousness, 1918-1980
Altered Consciousness is a conference taking place at Queen Mary, University of London on 16-17 November 2013. Participants will explore the theme of altered consciousness in relation to popular culture, psychology, philosophy, religion, medicine and literature during the period 1918-1980.
Wednesday 9th October, 2013
6pm, Arts 2
Annual Lecture: ‘Collective Emotions: reasons to be doubtful’, by Professor Steve Connor
The history of emotions depends heavily on the idea of collective emotions, such as guilt, panic, anxiety, offence, hostility and even, if rarely, contentment. I will examine the assumptions and implications of such claims, hoping to be able to conclude that the idea of collective emotion – that is, emotion felt by a collective subject – is unintelligible and so contentless. I will conclude by wondering whether we can make sense of collective emotions by redescribing them as 'meta-emotions', feelings we have about feelings we feel we, or others, should be feeling.
Friday 13th September, 2013
9am, Arts 2
Teaching to Hate
A collaboration between the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) and the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London
Wednesday 27th March, 2013
1pm, Arts 2
Chaucer, Coleridge, Emotion and Affect, with Professor Stephanie Trigg
Professor Stephanie Trigg (University of Melbourne; Visiting Fellow, Queen Mary, University of London, 2013).
“Especially delicious and exquisitely tender”: Chaucer, Coleridge, Emotion and Affect
Further details including abstract available here: 2013 Semester 2 Lunchtime Seminars
Wednesday 13th March, 2013
6pm, Bart's Pathology Museum
The Carnival of Lost Emotions
The Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London and Bart's Pathology Museum bring you THE CARNIVAL OF LOST EMOTIONS, supported by the Wellcome Trust.
Join the mysterious Ringmaster, his Lost Emotions Machine and his team of historical assistants, as we take a dark and unsettling look at the emotions of the past and present.
Wednesday 6th March, 2013
1pm, Arts 2
Emotion and the English Public House 1918-1939 with Dr Stella Moss
Dr Stella Moss (Royal Holloway, University of London)
“Happy drinkers, sad drunks”?: Emotion and the English Public House, 1918-39
Further details including abstract available here: 2013 Semester 2 Lunchtime Seminars
Wednesday 13th February, 2013
1pm, Arts 2
Exploring print-press representations of Edwardian pensioners, with Susan Stoddart
Susanne Stoddart (Royal Holloway, University of London)
‘“Life has been hardly worth living,” he said, as a tear trickled down his cheek’: Exploring Print-Press Representations of Edwardian Old Age Pensioners
Further details including abstract available here: 2013 Semester 2 Lunchtime Seminars
Wednesday 23rd January, 2013
1pm, Arts 2
Sacrifice, memory and emotion in Finnish war experience, with Dr Tuomas Tepora
Dr Tuomas Tepora (University of Helsinki; Visiting Post-Doctoral Researcher, Queen Mary, University of London).
Coping with Violence: Sacrifice, Collective Memory and Emotion in Finnish Early 20th Century War Experiences.
Further details including abstract available here: 2013 Semester 2 Lunchtime Seminars
See also:
- ‘Sisu’: The Finnish for ‘stiff upper lip’? by Tuomas Tepora on the History of Emotions Blog.
Wednesday 12th December, 2012
1pm, Arts 2
‘Distress, Neuroscience and History: Living in the Blitz’, by Hera Cook
This paper, by Hera Cook of the University of Birmingham, examines one of the first group therapy sessions held in England, which took place following a period of heavy bombing during WWII. The paper asks what neuroscientific research might contribute to the analysis of this event. Some of the women involved were experiencing acute distress and the rest of the group
expressed empathy and attempted to help. It considers whether concepts such as emotional contagion or mirror neurons add to historical understanding and ask what role scientific definitions of emotion play in the interpretation.
See also: Lunchtime seminars 2012 [PDF]