Time and place
December 17th – Digitally over Zoom: 09.00–16.00
December 18th – Digitally over Zoom: 09.00–16.00
Description
In our daily lives, we move through different spaces that are formed by our perceptions and ideas. These spaces influence our experiences of the world, and they reflect specific emotions. City streets, churches and classrooms are examples of sites that shape our bodies and its senses and are often connected to ideas of specific emotional atmospheres. At the same time, these spaces are figments of our imagination and subject to changes over time. Therefore, theories concerning emotions and spaces could provide a possibility for historians to uncover a more profound understanding of how the experiences of individuals are related to particular societal norms and values in different historical contexts.
Scholars have in recent years become increasingly concerned with discussing the spatial and emotional aspects of history. This raises methodological questions for historians. This seminar aims to discuss these questions and provide a useful introduction to what has been described as the Emotional and Spatial Turns in the Humanities, with a special focus on the interactions between these new perspectives.
Some argue that the globalized world is experiencing a new “Sense of Place” due to people becoming more mobile than before. While connections between space and knowledge has received wide scholarly attention the past decades, connections between space and emotion remain largely unexplored, despite the emphasis on emotions as an increasingly relevant resource in our daily lives, in politics and in the public sphere. Even though emotions and spaces often are highlighted as important, they are often taken for granted as something fixed and universal. This static view disregards the findings of historians that maintains the diverse experiences and discourses relating to spaces and emotions in history.
Every historian operates deliberately or unknowingly with a spatial and emotional context. However, spaces and emotions are elusive concepts that are difficult to distinguish. This seminar hopes to make these perspectives less obscure. By discussing the participants’ research projects in relation to these theories, theoretical questions will be considered such as: How can we study emotions and spaces in history? What is the relation between spaces and places, as well as emotions and affections? How do discourses on spaces and emotions change over time and how do these concepts interact with each other?
Invited speakers and commentators are
- Professor Ellen Krefting, from the University of Oslo
- Research Associate and lecturer Joseph Ben Prestel from Freie Universität Berlin
- Associate professor Line Cecilie Engh from the University of Oslo
The seminar will be held in English and will feature lectures by Joseph Ben Prestel, Professor Ellen Krefting and Associate Professor Line Cecilie Engh. The rest of the course will be devoted to presentations and comments on the papers presented by the participants. The seminar is aimed towards – but not exclusive to – PhD candidates. We welcome participants from a wide range of academic disciplines with a historical perspective, such as Intellectual History, Art History and Cultural History. Participants are expected to prepare for the seminar by sending an abstract of their paper and reading a select number of articles/books from the reading list. You are free to decide which books and articles to read.
Requirements for 3 ECTS credits:
PhD candidates attending the seminar will be asked to submit an abstract of their paper (max 300 words) and a shorter text (3–5 pages) relating to the theme of the seminar. This text can be written in any of the Scandinavian languages or English. The abstract should be written in English. The presentation will be 5 minutes long and should serve as a short introduction to the written paper. The content of the paper has to be related to one or both of the theoretical perspectives discussed in the course. The candidates are free to reflect more generally on methodological questions concerning the course literature or relate their research project to emotional and/or spatial theory.
Organizer: Joel Johansson
Please register and submit your paper by sending an e-mail to: joel.johansson@ifikk.uio.no
Deadline for abstract and paper: 4. December 2020.
Suggested reading list (you are free to decide 100–150 pages to read from this list)
Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
Ahmed, Sara. Uprootings/regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration. Oxford: Berg, 2003.
Engh, Line Cecilie. Gendered Identities in Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of songs: Performing the Bride. Vol. Vol. 15. Europa Sacra. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014.
Feld, Steven, and Keith H. Basso. Senses of Place. School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series. Santa Fe, N.M: School of American Research Press, 1996.
Gilje, Nils, and Torunn Selberg. Kulturelle Landskap: Sted, Fortelling Og Materiell Kultur. Bergen: Fagbokforl, 2007.
Helseth, Hannah. "Å Føle I Offentligheten – En Diskusjon Av Nancy Frasers Offentlighetsidealer." Tidsskrift for Kjønnsforskning 42, no. 03, 184–95, 2018.
Johannisson, Karin, Melankoliska rum: om ångest, leda och sårbarhet i förfluten tid och nutid Stockholm: Bonnier, 2009.
Johannisson, Karin. Nostalgia: En känslas historia. Bonnier Essä. Stockholm: Bonnier, 2001.
Krefting, Ellen. I Begynnelsen Er Følelsen: En Studie Av Eksistensfølelsen Som Grensefigur I Fransk Tekst Og Tenkning Fra Malebranche Til Rousseau Nr 243, 2005.
Martinsen, Lone Kølle (ed.), Slagmark: Tidsskrift for Idéhistorie #80: Følelser. Århus: Tidsskriftet Slagmark, 2020.
Matt, Susan J. Homesickness: An American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.
Pernau, M. “Space and emotion: Building to feel”. History Compass, 12, 541–549. 2014.
Plamper, Jan, and Keith. Tribe. The History of Emotions: An Introduction. Emotions in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Prestel, Ben, Emotional cities: debates on urban change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860–1910 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Reddy, William, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions, Cambridge: U.K. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Rosenwein, Barbara H., ”Worrying about emotions in history”, The American Historical Review 107:3, 2002.
Rosenwein, Barbara H., ”Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions”, Passions in Context. Journal of the History and Philosophy of the Emotions 1, 2010.
Scheer, Monique ”Are emotions a kind of practice (and is that what makes them have a history)? A Bourdieuian approach to understanding emotion”, History and Theory 51:2, 2012.
Stearns, Peter N. & Carol Z. Stearns, ”Emotionology. Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards”, The American Historical Review 90:4, 1985.
Vallgårda. Karen, "Følelseshistorie – Teoretiske Brudflader Og Udfordringer." Kulturstudier 4, no. 2: Kulturstudier, 01 November 2013, Vol.4(2), 2013.