Affects in History: A Workshop

Join us for a day-long workshop on Affects in History, hosted by the Department of English and Related Literature, the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, and the Centre for Modern Studies. 

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 precirculated 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.

This workshop is funded by York's Research Champions for Culture and Communication, and Creativity.

Confirmed speakers include: Professor Ben Anderson (Professor of Geography, University of Durham), Dr Merve Emre (Associate Professor of American Literature, University of Oxford), Professor David James (Chair in Modern and Contemporary Literature, University of Birmingham), Dr Erin Lafford (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Derby), Dr Noreen Masud (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in English, University of Durham), Dr Kate Singer (Associate Professor of English and Chair of Critical Social Thought, Mount Holyoke College), and Dr Ross Wilson (University of Cambridge).

For more information on our speakers and the event programme, see the workshop website.

Register in advance here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Organisers:

Mary Fairclough, English/Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies (mary.fairclough@york.ac.uk)

Alexandra Kingston-Reese, English/Centre for Modern Studies (alexandra.kingston-reese@york.ac.uk)