< Back to Events

Annual Lecture: ‘Collective Emotions: reasons to be doubtful’, by Professor Steve Connor

Wednesday 9th October, 2013

6pm, Arts 2

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.

Steven Connor is Grace 2 Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. The text of his 2013 History of Emotions Annual Lecture at Queen Mary is available on his website.