ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
Collaboratory: Languages of Emotion: Translations & Transformations Collaboratory
Date: 10 – 12 June 2014
Venue: The University of Western Australia
Call for Papers due: 15 December 2013. Submit Papers here.
Registration: Register here. Registration is free, though participants, apart from the plenary speakers, will need to organise their own travel funding.
Plenary speakers:
- Professor Anna Wierzbicka (Linguistics Program, ANU).
- Dr. Naama Cohen-Hanegbi (Tel Aviv University).
- Dr. Javier E. Diaz Vera, Department of Modern Philology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, will lead a plenary workshop on detecting and analysing emotions terminology and images in medieval texts
Granted that the terms for ’emotions’, let alone the definitions of what constitutes an emotion, vary from culture to culture and over time, one of the most difficult and intriguing problems in the history of emotions is how to interpret these variations and draw out their significance for modern analysis. This collaboratory will address particularly the question of cultural variation and historical evolution of the terminologies of emotion in pre-modern Europe. What terms were available for expressing or describing emotions, and what did people mean by them? How were emotions terms translated between different pre-modern European languages, and where were such differences highlighted and explored by pre-modern authors — not just lexicographers, but also perhaps philosophers, diplomats, travel writers, and others)? How did the use of emotions terms vary between different genres and registers? Consideration might be given to scientific and medical literature, theology, devotional literature, fiction, correspondence, even visual arts. And finally, how do we, as modern researchers, best ‘translate’ these terms for our own understanding and analysis?
We are now calling for paper proposals for this collaboratory. If you wish to present a paper, please provide a title, abstract, and brief (no more than 1 page) CV by 15 December 2013. Papers (apart from the plenaries) will be 20 minutes long; and any topic dealing with the terminologies and languages of emotions in Europe, 1100-1800, will be welcome!