Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS): Special Issue on ‘Emotion and Change’:

EHCS invites scholars exploring the question ‘What differences do emotions make in processes of change?’ to propose articles for inclusion in a special issue on ‘Emotion and Change’, to be published in the first half of 2018.

One of the key issues for scholars who study emotions is the role that they play in processes of social, cultural, historical, political, economic and other forms of change. Particularly relevant to such discussions have been studies of collective or mass emotions and their relationship to social or political movements; the uses of emotion to manipulate groups, such as through mass media, or the key role of affection in childhood development, that plays a significant role in adult life chances and outcomes. Teasing out the role emotion plays in such processes – is it an actor in its own right; a tool to be utilised; or something of both? – remains a significant area of debate in the field. More broadly, an interrogation of emotion can rethink what scholars should look for when assessing change. Is change something that happens at the level of individuals, groups or societies; is feeling enough to mark change or does it have to be followed by action, and if so what counts as action? If emotions are at stake in processes of change, how do they operate to enable change? How is emotion mediated, shared, transformed and put to work? What role do the arts, literature, technology and more play in such emotional processes of change?

The above questions and discussion are intended to stimulate ideas and generate discussion but should not be viewed as limiting. Contributions are welcome that seek to re-imagine the terms of this question to further our understanding of the operation of emotion in human life.

Proposals are now invited for 6,000-8,000 word articles (including notes) that fall under this remit and should include a c.500 word abstract of the proposed submission, a short biography of the author and contact information. Please send proposals and enquiries to editemotions@gmail.com by 31 July, 2016. More information will be available shortly on our website.

Call for proposals, for a new series from Medieval Institute Publications – Late Tudor and Stuart Drama: Gender, Performance, and Material Culture

Series Editors: Cristina León Alfar, Hunter College, CUNY, and Helen Ostovich, McMaster University

This series provides a forum for monographs and essay collections that investigate the material culture, broadly conceived, of theatre and performance in England from the late Tudor to the pre-Restoration Stuart periods (c. 1550–1650). The editors invite proposals for book-length studies engaging in the material vitality of the dramatic text, political culture, theatre and performance history, theatrical design, performance spaces, gendering court entertainments, child- and adult-actors, music, dance, and audiences in London and on tour. We are also interested in the discursive production of gender, sex, and race in early modern England in relation to material historical, social, cultural, and political structures; changes to and effects of law; monarchy and the republic in dramatic texts; theatre and performance, including performance spaces that are not in theatres. Further topics might include the production and consumption of things and ideas; costumes, props, theatre records and accounts, gendering of spaces and geographies (court, tavern, street, and household, rural or urban), cross-dressing, military or naval excursions, gendered pastimes, games, behaviours, rituals, fashions, and encounters with the exotic, the non-European, the disabled, and the demonic and their reflection in text and performance.

To submit a proposal, please contact Erika Gaffney, Senior Acquisitions Editor, at Erika.Gaffney@arc-humanities.org.