Space, Cities and Emotion

This cluster focuses on the research of those whose work connects with the ideas of space, cities and identities. (This cluster has ceased its activities.)

Image: 'Cold City' by Paul Klee, 1921. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This cluster focuses on the research of those whose work connects with the ideas of space, cities and identities. 'Space' can be thought about in terms of rural as well as urban space. The concept of 'space' is already an important one in social and cultural theory linked to the emotions and has been developed by feminist and other scholars around the concepts of nation, territory and belonging. In addition, the concept of cities is a hugely important concept for the framing of historical, sociological and aesthetic discourses.

The cluster ‘Space, Cities and Emotions’ has members who are at different stages of their careers, ranging from PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers to senior academics. One of the cluster’s strengths is that it crosses disciplinary boundaries. Our members draw on their strengths in the fields of history, sociology, urban geography, political science, philosophy, music and English. A key feature of the cluster is that we explore these themes across multiple time periods and geographical locations, benefitting everyone in this collaborative group.

Collaborating Members

Michael Levine, The University of Western Australia
Craig Lyons, The University of Sydney
Christian Parreno, Oslo School of Architecture and Design

Cluster Activities

Panel at ISRE Conference, Geneva, 9 July 2015, organised by Ann Brooks and David Lemmings, ‘Emotions, Dangers and Crises in the Metropolis’. Panelists included Patrick Gray (The University of Durham) and Giovanni Tarantino (CHE).

Lisa Beaven and Mark Seymour (University of Otago, New Zealand) convened a CHE-sponsored workshop Space and Emotion: The Places of Rome, at The University of Melbourne, 4 November 2016. Audiences heard from 7 speakers, followed by a roundtable discussion of key discoveries. Abstracts from the day can be found here.

Christian Parreno, Conference paper, ‘Architectural Preservation as Taxidermy: Patriarchy and Boredom’, 17-19 November 2016. KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm: ‘Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies’

Christian Parreno, Session: Spaces and Architectures of Boredom, 5-8 January 2017, Modern Language Association, Philadelphia. Program details.

Main Outcomes

The Conversation: ‘Liveable cities: who decides what that means and how we achieve it?’, 2015

Two chapters in The Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience by cluster members Katie Barclay (‘Mapping the Spaces of Seduction: Morality, Gender and the City in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain’) and Merridee Bailey (‘Shaping London Merchant Identities: Emotions, Reputation and Power in the Court of Chancery’)

Katie Barclay has also edited and written the Introduction to Part 5: ‘Intimacy and Emotion’, in The Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience.

Ann Brooks, new monograph, Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacies and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity. Foreword by David Konstan (New York/London: Routledge, 2017), including a chapter on ‘Intimacy, Emotions and the Public Sphere: From Sentimental Ideology to "The Queen of America"- the Public and the Private in the Work of Lauren Berlant’.

Lisa Beaven has reviewed Mapping Spaces: Networks of Knowledge in 17th Century Landscape Painting. Ulrike Gehring and Peter Weibel, eds. Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2014. 504 pp. $75, forthcoming in 2017 in SCN (Seventeenth-century News).