The Workshop

Hosted by the Department of English and Related Literature, the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, and the Centre for Modern Studies, Affects in History is running a day-long workshop with the aim of establishing a cross-period, interdisciplinary network of scholars working on affect.

The theoretical study of affect and emotion has attracted increasing scholarly study in the last twenty years. But scholarship in this area has tended to fall into two areas: first, the theoretical study of affect and emotion in contemporary culture; and second, empirical and historical analyses of the history of emotions.

This workshop features three panels of speakers who will each speak to a short pre-circulated paper, followed by a roundtable. Speakers will discuss representations and analyses of affect and emotion from the early modern period to contemporary culture, in a wide range of cultural forms. Together, our aims are to bring together theoretical accounts of affect with historical analyses of affect and emotion, offering a cross-period and interdisciplinary investigation of affect to date.

Due to ongoing uncertainties and difficulties related to travel and gatherings in person, the workshop is an online event. We will have pre-circulated papers, in order to give participants and delegates time to read and absorb all of your contributions, and to leave plenty of time for discussion on the day of the workshop.

We will have three panels of invited speakers, and in each panel, speakers will briefly talk to their pre-circulated paper, then we'll move to an open Q&A. Contributors and delegates will be free to attend all three panels, or to drop in for parts of the day.