ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
Collaboratory: Faces of Emotion: Medieval to Postmodern
The University of Melbourne
5th – 7th December, 2012
This interdisciplinary collaboratory, hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, will analyse the expression and communication of emotion, using the face as a central medium. Papers will range from medieval Europe to contemporary global culture, and the conference will include a public lecture on the evening of December 5 by Professor C. Stephen Jaeger on the 2011 ‘silent’ film, The Artist, reflecting on various emotive, expressive and charismatic faces of earlier periods and their impact on an audience.
Convenors:
Stephanie Downes (stephanie.downes@unimelb.com.au)
Stephanie Trigg (sjtrigg@unimelb.edu.au)
RSVP and further enquiries:
Jessie Scott (jessica.scott@unimelb.edu.au)
Further information:
What’s in a face? And how do faces communicate emotion?
The Mona Lisa captivates us again and again, not only for what her smile communicates, but also for what it leaves unspoken and unreadable. Faces can express emotions, or withhold them, just as they both invite and resist our scrutiny. Many academic disciplines and artistic and cultural practices are fascinated by the face and its capacity to express emotion, from art, literature, cinema, photography, drama and biography to sociology, politics, psychology, cultural studies and anthropology. Questions of performance, historical change and cultural difference further complicate the relationship between emotions and the face.
This interdisciplinary collaboratory, hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, will analyse the expression and communication of emotion, using the face as a central medium. Papers will range from medieval Europe to contemporary global culture, and the conference will include a public lecture on the evening of December 5 by Professor C. Stephen Jaeger on the 2011 ‘silent’ film, The Artist, reflecting on various emotive, expressive and charismatic faces of earlier periods and their impact on an audience.
Presentations and performances in the collaboratory will address these wider research questions:
- historical change: what narratives, patterns, contrasts, or contradictions emerge over time? What mental, social and cultural processes help us order and recognise faces and emotions?
- racial, cultural and linguistic encounters: how do European and Indigenous understandings, representations and definitions of facial emotion compare or conflict?
- textual, performative and visual representations: how might various forms of art, past and present, translate facial emotion? Does formal portraiture hinder or flatten emotion?
Presenters have been invited to meditate on the broader methodological implications of the material they present. We hope for a lively exchange of ideas over the course of the collaboratory, and have left plenty of time for discussion about emotions and the face to range beyond the papers themselves: the full participation of presenters and audience members is actively encouraged.
Confirmed participants include Eileen Joy, Jonathan Lamb, Stephen Knight, Paul James, Louise d’Arcens, Kim Phillips, Vivien Gaston, Joanna Gilmour, Charles Zika, Meredith Jones, Ottmar Lipp and others.
REGISTRATIONS OPEN NOW
To download the full program and a registration form, please go to: http://historyofemotions.org.au/upcoming-events/faces-of-emotion-medieval-to-postmodern.aspx