I love the collaboration the CHE engenders. It is truly thrilling to hear about the work of neuroscientists, social psychologists, historians, musicologists, literary critics, and many others. It is intriguing to understand the kinds of questions each discipline asks, and be exposed to the methods of analysis and particular to each way of thinking and organizing results. A few months ago, at a Methods Collaboratory, the question arose: what should humanities “do” with such information? Can maps of the brain, for instance, help us to produce a more clearly situated “history of emotions”? From that series of questions came the more precise questions of discipline specificity. Several Literary Studies scholars expressed an interest in more clearly defining a methodology for how literary scholars might best use the History of Emotions. What are our questions? Who are our models? What is our bibliography? And, most importantly, what can we build upon and use?
The Literary Emotion Methodologies Study Day was born of these concerns and questions. The Study Day focuses specifically on the theoretical and methodological questions that are particularly relevant to the intersection between Literary Studies and the History of Emotion. We plan to discuss, share, and create methods for literary theoretical application within the vocabulary and methods of the history of emotion, though anyone working in the history of emotions is encouraged to come along and join in the conversation. In the spirit of (inter)disciplinarity, we share below the program for October 11. Please register with Jessica Scott to attend if you haven’t already!
Date: Friday, 11 October, 2013 Time: 9.00am – 5.30 pm Location: Old Physics-G16
(Jim Potter Room), The University of Melbourne, Parkville
Dinner on Thursday 10 October at 7pm on Lygon Street.
REGISTRATION Deadline: 4 October 2013.
Contact Jessica Scott (Jessica.scott@unimelb.edu. au) to register and receive reading pack.
More information: www.historyofemotions.org.au
The morning sessions will consist of roundtables that will explore methods of the history of emotions as applied to literary studies and literary texts.
In the afternoon sessions we will discuss pre-circulated readings that provide models and methodologies for literature and the history of emotion.
Presenters include:
• Merridee Bailley, The University of Adelaide
“Reading Emotions in Dramatic and Non-Dramatic Literary Texts for Early Modern Merchant Audiences”
• Peter Holbrook, The University of Queensland
“‘Process Philosophy’, Literature and the Emotions”
• Aleksondra Hultquist, The University of Melbourne
“The Passions and Literary Love in the Eighteenth Century”
• Rebecca McNamara, The University of Sydney
“Emotional Communities and Literary Genre”
• Grace Moore, The University of Melbourne
“By the Blazing Firelight: Campfires and Portable Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century Australia”
• Stephanie Trigg, The University of Melbourne
“What is an emotive?: William Reddy’s The Navigation of Feeling and (In) Direct Discourse”
Posted by Aleksondra Hultquist
Histories of Emotion 
As a PhD student grappling with the problems of Literary Emotions methodology is it possible that this tantalizing Study Day might be shared on Vimeo?