Feeling Exclusion in Early Modern Europe. An international symposium convened by the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions at The University of Melbourne. 29-31 May 2014. 9am-5pm Graduate House, The University of Melbourne, 220 Leicester Street, Carlton.
Seventeen scholars from Europe, Australia and North America will explore the history of intolerance and exclusion in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, when political and religious upheaval forced an unprecedented number of people to flee their homelands. ‘Feeling Exclusion in Early Modern Europe’ draws on a long history of discrimination to inform current social issues.
During his 1992 Redfern speech on the impact of European settlers on Australian Aboriginal communities, Prime Minister Paul Keating said, “We practiced the discrimination and exclusion”. How have European legacies of intolerance and histories of exile shaped our political present? How can a history of emotions illuminate the experiences of refugees past and present?
“Feeling Exclusion”, convened by Dr. Giovanni Tarantino and Professor Charles Zika of The University of Melbourne, will feature papers investigating a history that stretches from the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the late fifteenth century to the persecution of different groups during the long period of Reformation, Religious Wars and Absolutism that sparked waves of expulsion and migration. Then, as now, responses to and from those experiencing exclusion were highly emotionally charged.
“We have certainly learnt many of the lessons of those times”, says Professor Charles Zika, “the need for co-existence, social inclusion and religious toleration. But we have also not totally abandoned some of the attitudes of centuries ago, the fear of those with world views different to our own, the mistrust of the displaced and refugees, a difficulty to empathize adequately with the stress of those experiencing exclusion.”
In addition to the symposium, a Free Public Lecture by the acclaimed writer, novelist, and human rights advocate Arnold Zable, ‘The Cry of the Excluded – A writer’s perspective’ will be given on Thursday 29 May, at 6.15pm at the Latham Theatre, Redmond Barry Building, University of Melbourne.
On Friday evening 30 May at 6.15 pm, a concert of choral works relevant to the content of the symposium will be performed in Trinity chapel (Trinity College, Royal Parade, Parkville) by the ensemble e21, conducted by the Head of the Early Music Studio, Stephen Grant (register on the symposium form, or tickets at door, $15 conc / $20 full.)
Media Contact: Charles Zika | E: c.zika@unimelb.edu.au | T: 03 8344 5954
Further Information: /events/feeling-exclusion-emotional-strategies-and-burdens-of-religious-discrimination-and-displacement-in-early-modern-europe.aspx