The History of Emotions conference will be held 3-5 September 2015 and is organised by Victoria University’s Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies and the Ministry for Culture & Heritage.
Professor Lydia Wevers, Director of the Stout Research Centre, says New Zealanders have been described as ‘the passionless people’.
“Yet our cultural history is full of narratives of repression and explosion. Are we specialists in the dark side? Or do we narrate a skewed version of our national character?
“This conference will explore why emotions matter, what they tell us and what is new in thinking about emotions.”
A keynote opening address will be delivered by Professor Joanna Bourke of Birkbeck College London.
Her talk will explore the history of the emotions of men physically disabled during World War One. The appearance after the war of tens of thousands of maimed and mutilated young men required public as well as private responses. Professor Bourke is a prize-winning author of 11 books, including histories of killing, rape, fear and pain.
Another keynote address will be given by Associate Professor Philip Armstrong of the University of Canterbury. He will look at the history of New Zealand emotions and animals, especially sheep which he describes as “that most trivialised of all New Zealand animals”.
The conference programme draws together an ensemble of presenters on many different aspects of New Zealand’s emotional history ranging from colonial melancholy, ‘Nerves and the 1951 waterfront lockout’ to the topic of ‘Je suis Charlie in the Age of Global Anxiety’. Place is also considered—one topic is ‘The kiwi kitchen as an emotional space’.
For further information, visit the Stout Centre website.