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16 April 2014
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Contents
Director’s report Emotion, ritual and power Changing hearts Kirstin Linklater: emotion and the voice Try walking in my shoes Popularizing anti-Semitism in early modern Spain and its empire Affective habitus Make history with us New Chief Investigator New staff Forthcoming events Call for papers
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Director’s report
Greeks, British, Anzacs and the emotions of war
As we approach Anzac Day, it’s right that we remember, and reflect on, the importance of war in Australia’s 20th C history. The year 1915 was quickly marked down, even at the time, as a turning point. The role of Australian troops at Gallipoli, in Egypt and in the trenches in France became a source of national pride, an index and icon of national identity and the basis of Australia’s claims, after the war, to have a strong voice in the shaping of the (then) new world order. But of course there’s always the other side – the dreadful costs of war. Not only was the World War I death rate among Australian troops appalling; not only did many return permanently physically disabled; but the emotional and psychological costs were immense, and terrible. Years after the war, the sufferers of what was then called shell-shock were still hospitalized and incapacitated for ordinary life; men who had gone to war mentally and physically fit returned to a life of alcoholism and mental illness. Nowadays, we would call these injuries ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’, and increasingly (after Vietnam and Afghanistan) we recognise that it is a condition that can and must be fully acknowledged and well treated. But it hasn’t always been like that. ‘Shell-shock’ victims in World War I were sometimes thought to be in some ways ‘weak’ or insufficient to the needs of war (a classic case of blaming the victim). Even more interestingly, understandings of their deep emotional pain differed very markedly in different places throughout history. Joanna Bourke, studying the emotional effects and regimes of war in 20th century Britain found that deeply embedded British notions of class affected their readings of World War I post-traumatic stress disorder. Upper-class army officers were of superior calibre; they could experience ‘shellshock’. But working-class troops under their command couldn’t aspire to shellshock - they (it was thought) suffered only from the much-despised ‘neurasthenia’ or nervous weakness. Amazingly, the same understandings were extended to animals. Officers’ horses, like their masters, could become shell-shocked, while the lowly mule was thought to be immune. What about emotional reactions to wars in the long past? After all, from pre-Classical times right through the Middle Ages and early modern period humans have engaged in brutal, bloody, hand-to-hand wars. Did their warriors get post-traumatic stress disorder, and if not why not? The question intrigues Professor David Konstan, who went looking for recognisable accounts of post-traumatic stress disorder in the Ancient Greek epics. At first, it doesn’t seem to be there. Then he looked closer at the accounts of the warriors fighting in, and returning home from, the legendary wars of Troy. What did he find? On the one hand, they are presented as heroes, almost godlike beings who must be admired, and if possible imitated. On the other, they fly into irrational rages, beat and enslave women and servants and in the case of Ulysses, arbitrarily slaughter a crowd of his wife’s supposed suitors, even though she has remained entirely and strictly faithful to him over the long years of his absence! It might sound like classic post-traumatic stress disorder behaviour to us; to them, it’s just what heroes do, par for the course. Like practically every other emotion, then, post-war trauma has never been understood the same way in different places and at different times in history. We believe, nowadays, that we have a much better, and more humane, understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment. We should remember with pity and perhaps remorse the plight of those returning Anzacs who suffered from the lack of acknowledgement of their mental state and the need for its proper treatment. But we should also remember that how we think now may not be how we think in the future. In the year 2114 people may be wondering why we (apparently) knew so little, and did so little, for the traumatized from our own wars.
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Emotion, ritual and power
The Change program’s Collaboratory based in Adelaide from 10-12 February 2014 was entitled ‘Emotion, ritual and power’ and brought together academics and practising artists over three days to explore the connections that emotions, ritual and power have to each other. The aim of this collaboratory was to investigate how the history of emotions perspective can be used to ask new questions about rituals and power and to consider emotion not only as a part of human experience but as a driver of social change. “Investigating our emotional engagement and reaction to rituals can help us to better understand our past,” co-convenor Merridee Bailey said. “This was an opportunity to gather leading scholars, early career researchers and postgraduates in a collegial atmosphere to share thoughts about the emotional power rituals have for us across time and cultures”. One of CHE’s strengths has been to bring together scholars working in a range of fields. At this particular collaboratory, keynote addresses were delivered by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse, University of Oxford, art historian Helen Hills, University of York and medieval historian Carol Lansing, The University of California, Santa Barbara. Themes included the transforming affect of the rituals associated with Italian medieval and early modern miracles, also ritual humiliation and who is allowed to show (and perhaps even feel) emotion in specific circumstances. Those at the collaboratory were fortunate to hear other papers from scholars and practising artists talking about emotion, ritual, and power in medieval Germany, seventeenth century France, and twentieth century England. Click here for more information on the individual talks. “Over the course of the three days we came to realise that rituals defy easy categorisation as being ‘domestic’, ‘political’ or ‘religious’, but that they merge and blur boundaries to suggest the complex ways people in the past (and today) approach highly emotional ritualised experiences. Such provocation can help us to understand how emotions weave their way into and out of our own experiences,” Bailey concluded. Back to Top
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Changing hearts
By Yasmin Haskell On 7-8 March the ‘History of Jesuit Emotions’ project based at the UWA node of CHE hosted a symposium at Trinity College, Cambridge, ‘Changing Hearts: Performing Jesuit Emotions Between Europe, Asia and the Americas’. Speakers and chairs included literary, intellectual, art, religious, social and music historians and hailed from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, Italy, Belgium, France, and Finland. Papers ranged from Juan Luis Gonzalez Garcia’s (The University of Madrid) on visual aids to preaching in the early modern Iberian rural missions -- skulls, crucifixes, and macabre wax models were employed to inspire dread and repentance -- through to David Irving’s (Australian National University) on music, dance, and drama as more agreeable tools for conversion and communal devotion in the remote Mariana islands. Several papers explored performative poses in non-dramatic texts, such as Peter O’Brien’s (Halifax) on the verse letters put in the person of an exiled ‘New France’ writing home about the climatic and culture shocks of life on the Canadian missions – the Jesuit author had never set foot outside of France. Karin Kukkonnen (The University of Turku) identified an unexpected outlet for Jesuit theories of dramatic emotion in the eighteenth-century English novels and moral and aesthetic writings of Charlotte Lennox. Raphaële Garrod (UWA) calibrated the dramatic and ethical theories of Nicolas Caussin – one-time confessor to Louis XIII – in his Latin tragedy Felicitas, in which an early Christian mother witnesses and becomes habituated to the successive martyrdoms of her seven sons. In this play, maternal emotions are trumped by sacred, and human tears give way to sublime, which are physiologically distinct. The emotions of martyrdom ‘in real time’ were, of course, carefully crafted and related in Jesuit missionary reports. Tara Alberts (The University of York) gave examples of young Vietnamese converts supposedly embracing death with the same uncanny good cheer as the early Christian martyrs. CHE doctoral student Makoto Harris Takao (UWA) found parallels with accounts of the fortitude of physically delicate female martyrs from the Christian century in Japan. Such stories fed the imaginations of Jesuit poets and playwrights. The climax of our symposium was an historically informed performance of the musical elements of a drama devoted to the supposed martyrdom by flagellation of Gracia Hosokawa, a sixteenth-century Japanese lady convert. The sung roles of ‘Constancy’, ‘Rage’, ‘Restlessness’, and ‘Repentance’ gloss, precisely, the internal passion(s) of the outwardly inscrutable martyr. The original stage directions indicate that an effigy of Gracia’s heart was to be cast into a fire on stage and later retrieved, glowing brighter than before. Unfortunately we were unable to reproduce this special effect on the night, nor to recreate, for example, the ‘ironic dance’ of the sons of the Bonzes … The video of the concert, by Solomon’s Knot Baroque Collective, led by Jonathan Sells, will be made available in due course, as will an online version of the exhibition of rare books we curated at Trinity College’s Renaissance Wren library. Volumes on display included some of the earliest missionary reports from East Asia, an account of the embassy of four Japanese teenagers sent to Rome by the Jesuit Visitor to Japan on 20 February 1582, Athanasius Kircher’s magnificently illustrated doorstops ‘Universal Music-Making’ and ‘China Illustrated’, and a selection of anti-Jesuitica highlighting the Jesuits’ reputation for emotional seduction and manipulation. Trinity College and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies (Innsbruck, Austria) generously supported the conference. Back to Top
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Kristin Linklater: emotion and the voice
The Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions in conjunction with Black Swan State Theatre Company combined forces through an arts partnership to bring the renowned voice-coach Kristin Linklater to Perth, Western Australia, for a series of workshops on the voice, emotion and Shakespeare. Originally hailing from Scotland, Kristin has worked in the United States and Europe for over fifty years and has travelled the world over to pursue a highly successful career that stretches from theatre to academia to public speaking. Her work on the voice has earned her international acclaim, and seen her teach the likes of actors such as Patrick Stewart, Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver. Kristin was one of the founders of Shakespeare & Company, a world-renowned, American-based theatre company, and her passion for the bard has persisted throughout her long career. Her visit to Perth began with an intensive, four-day workshop on Shakespeare’s Othello with a group of actors from Black Swan State Theatre Company, who will be performing that play next year. The workshops, which were documented and recorded by the Centre for the History of Emotions, took the actors through a practical series of exercises intended to free the voice by opening the throat, becoming aware of breathing, relaxing the body and exploring vocal range. The aim was to awaken the voice/body’s full potential, and thereby allow the actors to express the range of their emotions and to articulate thoughts, impulses, and ideas more effectively. It was a gruelling four days, but all the actors reported feeling more attuned to the nuances of the voice and its capacity to express potent and varied emotions in Shakespeare’s text. One of the highlights of Kristin’s visit was a public evening seminar focused on Othello, where two actors from Black Swan joined Kristin to explore the character of Iago and his emotional relationship with Othello.Another arts partner, West Australian Opera, with Artistic Director Joseph Colaneri presenting along with singer James Clayton, also supported this event. The opera company was performing Verdi’s operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, Otello, which was running that week as part of the Perth International Arts Festival. CHE’s own CI Professor Bob White added to the discussion that was moderated by Performance Program Leader, Professor Jane Davidson. An evening of insight ensued, based on an analysis of the character of Iago, key to both Shakespeare’s play and Verdi’s opera. This scholarly and practical event explored the ways in which drama (through spoken language) and opera (through sung text and music) arouses emotion and depicts character, and how these are translated over time. Kristin’s visit concluded with two events held in one of Black Swan’s rehearsal rooms. The first was a workshop in which an audience comprising theatre students and CHE researchers watched on as Kristin demonstrated her approach to the voice by building on the work she had been undertaking with the professional actors from the theatre company. This rare, behind-the-scenes view was followed up with question time, allowing the audience the unique chance to interrogate Kristin’s methods. The final session was a roundtable discussion, where panellists from the University of Western Australia, the University of Sydney, and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts joined Kristin to share their views on the voice, emotion, and meaning, and to engage in an exciting, interdisciplinary discussion which set the stage for the forthcoming collaboratory on ‘the Voice and the History of Emotions’, to be held in Sydney at the end of September. Back to Top
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Try walking in my shoes
The emotion of empathy was the focus of a symposium entitled ‘Try Walking in My Shoes’, held at The Dax Centre at The University of Melbourne on 13 & 14 February 2014. This topical event drew more than a hundred people, several flying interstate. A diverse group of academics, filmmakers, mental health professionals and consumers gathered to share their perspectives on how mental illness is portrayed in film and television. A wide range of portrayals were discussed – from feature films and documentaries to TV programs and short films – across a broad time frame – e.g. early silent films, Hollywood studio pictures, to current TV shows like Homeland and Hannibal. “This range of material and the interdisciplinary mix of speakers reflected the symposium’s program, which included screenings and workshops alongside traditional academic panels. Keynote lectures were given by Gaita and Barbara Creed (The University of Melbourne) and Jane Stadler (The University of Queensland). The interest in ‘Try Walking in My Shoes’ was particularly evident in the media coverage, further proof of the wide community concern for an issue that touches many people. Highlights of the symposium included the film screenings and the opportunity for discussion afterwards, often with the filmmaker present. For example, Erminia Colucci from The University of Melbourne’s Centre for International Mental Health participated in a Q & A following the preview screening of her documentary Breaking the Chains, about the treatment of mental illness in rural Indonesia. According to Fincina Hopgood from the School of Culture & Communication at The University of Melbourne, co-convenor of the event with Victoria Duckett and Patricia Di Risio. This specific discussion gave the audience a valuable insight into the practices of ethnographic filmmaking and illustrated the ability of filmmaking to foster empathy and understanding despite cultural difference. Additionally, filmmaker Rick Randall, founder of The Other Film Festival, showed his short film, Smoke & Fog, as part of a workshop with Penelope Lee from The Dax Centre, who discussed the ethical and emotional challenges underpinning the Centre’s filmmaking projects with mental health consumers. In their workshop, Maria Dimopoulos and Diahann Lombardozzi shared their personal experiences as mental health consumers and showed Diahann’s short film Hypothesis, a candid insight into her journey with bipolar disorder. The symposium was particularly fortunate to have the support of production company Arenafilm, who allowed a screening of Richard Roxburgh’s acclaimed adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s beloved memoir, Romulus, My Father, starring Eric Bana, Franka Potente and Kodi Smit-McPhee. This proved to be a very moving experience, with Gaita attending the screening and participating in the panel discussion in which he openly and generously shared his feelings about seeing his childhood and his family’s experience with mental illness represented on screen. “This event was a potent demonstration of the ability of filmmaking to tap into our emotions and the discussion afterwards was crucial in allowing us to explore further the complexities of the issues this film portrays,” Hopgood said. “Given the symposium’s subject matter, we felt it was important to end on a positive note, so we were delighted to close with a special screening of the 2013 documentary The Sunnyboy, which chronicles songwriter Jeremy Oxley’s journey through psychological breakdown and diagnosis to recovery and learning to live with schizophrenia,” she said. Director Kaye Harrison joined internationally renowned mental health expert Professor Patrick McGorry for a Q & A that explored the ways in which the filmmaking approach developed an intimate relationship of trust with the subject. Harrison’s documentary gives the viewer privileged access to Oxley’s emotions, including his reflections on his diagnosis and his cheeky sense of humour. The feedback after the symposium has been overwhelmingly positive, from both presenters and attendees, with many appreciating the opportunity for informal networking across disciplines. This is testimony to the broader social significance of this important research area and the constructive, respectful discussions fostered by the symposium’s theme of empathy. Back to Top
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New book on anti-Semitism
A new book on by University of Adelaide Postdoctoral Fellow, Francois Soyer, entitled Popularizing anti-Semitism in early modern Spain and its empire, has been published by Brill. According to the publisher, this book charts the history and influence of the most vitriolic and successful anti-Semitic polemic ever to have been printed in the early modern Hispanic world and offers the first critical edition and translation of the text into English. “First printed in Madrid in 1674, the Centinela contra judíos (“Sentinel against the Jews”) was the work of the Franciscan Francisco de Torrejoncillo, who wrote it to defend the mission of the Spanish Inquisition, to call for the expansion of discriminatory racial statutes and, finally, to advocate in favour of the expulsion of all the descendants of converted Jews from Spain and its empire,” Soyer said. Soyer found that Francisco de Torrejoncillo combined the existing racial, theological, social and economic strands within Spanish anti-Semitism to demonize the Jews and their converted descendants in Spain in a manner designed to provoke strong emotional responses from its readership. Back to Top
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Affective Habitus: Emotions and Environment
A new conversation is taking place in Australian universities in response to the environmental crisis, challenging us not only to adjust the ways we think of our planet, but also consider how we relate emotionally to our only home. The upcoming conference ‘Affective Habitus: New Environmental Histories of Botany, Zoology and Emotions’ to be held at the Australian National University, Canberra (June 19-21) draws together scholars from the humanities and sciences along with artists, politicians and members of the public to discuss critical and creative responses to an urgent planetary situation. Co-convened with CHE and the Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture - Australia, New Zealand (ASLEC-ANZ), Affective Habitus will bring together an interdisciplinary group around topics ranging from ecocriticism to non-human animals to climate change to environmental art. Keynote speakers include prominent Australian and international scholars in the humanities and sciences such as climate change expert Professor Will Steffen; bushfire and Antarctic scholar Professor Tom Griffiths; ecofeminist Professor Ariel Salleh; food and gender writer Professor Elspeth Probyn, and controversial plant ethicist Professor Michael Marder. Registration for Affective Habitus is open, with early bird savings on offer till May 1st. Join the conversation @ThinkEmotions and @aslec_anz for pre-conference abstracts, articles, and more. For further reading, explore the Affective Habitus press pack and Ecocriticism: environment, emotions and education by CHE's Grace Moore and ANSLEC ANZ President Tom Bistow. . Back to Top
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Make history with us
What impact does medieval and early modern history have on our lives today? It’s a pressing question for the Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE), a research group based at five flagship universities across Australia studying Europe 1100-1800. Three of our projects explore the past through an increasingly immediate present as leading scholars invite public participation in academic research. In a groundbreaking partnership with the ABC, CHE Deputy Director Jane Davidson and Research Associate Sandra Garrido launched “My Life as A Playlist” in September last year. The project is part pop quiz, part survey, part Tripple J play list, and an intensive research study. “Working with the ABC we have been able to create website that has given CHE the opportunity to engage with the Australian public in a fun yet meaningful way to collect important data about music, personality, culture and history,” says Davidson. So hit shuffle on the iPod, and go to http://www.abc.net.au/arts/playlist/ and help researchers understand the evolving role of music in our lives. CHE’s Stephanie Trigg of The University of Melbourne is scouring literary sources throughout history for examples of “The Talking Face.” Her work centres on moments when characters say nothing, but their faces “speak” for them. Citing passages from well-loved works like Jane Austin’s Emma, Trigg invites readers to use a google form (link here) to extend their close reading to the very faces of characters they’ve come to love. The results will be used to identify the most productive terms to use in a computer-assisted search of literary texts in English to identify changing uses of this trope from medieval through to contemporary literature. One of the models for this kind of research is the contribution of the thousands of readers who contributed examples of word use for the Oxford English Dictionary in the nineteenth century. Ever wonder about the medical benefits of medieval rage? CHE is bringing the Medieval into the digital age with an exciting new “Emotions Wiki” project led by Philippa Maddern, Director of CHE. This project archives both visual and textual sources on emotion, and give scholars a chance to make their findings public, accessible and searchable for others. The Emotions Wiki is a resource that continues to grow through submissions, and you can contribute visual or textual sources here CHE encourages public participation in all three projects, inviting history enthusiasts, eager readers and music buffs to join us in the work of exploring the long history of emotions. Back to Top
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New Chief Investigator
Andrew Lynch has been appointed as Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at The University of Western Australia (UWA). He is a Professor in English and Cultural Studies UWA and Director of the UWA Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. He has written widely on medieval literature and culture and its various afterlives in Britain, the USA and Australia. Andrew’s CHE project is ‘The Emotions of War in Medieval Literature’. He is currently editing Emotions and War: Medieval to Romantic Literature (Palgrave) with Stephanie Downes and Katrina O’Loughlin, and Understanding Emotions in Early Europe (Brepols) with Michael Champion. The text International Medievalism and Popular Culture (Cambria), co-edited with Louise D’Arcens, is forthcoming in 2014. Back to Top
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New Staff
Jacquie Bennett has been appointed as Program Administrator at the CHE University of Adelaide node. Jacquie comes to this role having previously worked for five years as a Short-Course. Back to Top
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Forthcoming events
Feeling Exclusion: Emotional Strategies and Burdens of Religious Discrimination and Displacement in Early Modern Europe Date: 29-31 May Venue: Graduate House, The University of Melbourne Contact: Giovanni Tarantino orCharles Zika Languages of Emotion: Translations & Transformations Collaboratory Date: 10 - 12 June 2014 Venue: The University of Western Australia emotions@uwa.edu.au Affective Habitus: New Environmental Histories of Botany, Zoology and Emotions Date: 19 - 21 June 2014 Time: TBA Venue: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University 2014EHC@anu.edu.au In Form of War: Emotions and Warfare in Writing 1300-1820 27-28 June, 2014 Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre, Georgrapy and Geology Building, The University of Western Australia emotions@uwa.edu.au Back to Top
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Call for papers
The Voice and Histories of Emotion: 1500-1800 Proposals submitted: Monday 12th May 2014 Outcomes of submission: Monday 16th June 2014 Collaboratory date: 29 September - 1 October 2014 Venue: Department of Performance Studies, The University of Sydney emotions@uwa.edu.au Back to Top
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