First Blush: The Talking Face and disambiguating my research projects

I went to a meeting yesterday of our school's research committee where we were discussing the need to workshop grant applications early. They are mostly due in February, and all too often our committee and the grant shepherds receive drafts to look at in January, by which time it is far too late to give feedback of the structural kind (i.e. re-shape the inquiry and the disciplinary orientation; find a new writing partner or research team, etc.).

While I'm not ready, just yet, to declare the overall shape and orientation of my application, and I am very far from having a draft ready to be looked at, I'm going to stick with my intention and blog a little about what I am thinking about, at any rate. So, I'm making a start. 

When I sought advice from the research office about eligibility, etc. they said the main issue for me would be to make sure my new project did not overlap too much with the work I am doing in the Centre for the History of Emotions. This is a big logistic stumbling-block, but I think I am close to finding a way around it.

One of the projects I am working on in the Centre is on the expression of emotion on the human face. I was planning to write a book that (like my last two books on Chaucer and the Order of the Garter) ranged from medieval to contemporary culture. So, I was thinking about a chapter on Chaucer (medieval poetry), Shakespeare (early modern drama), George Eliot (nineteenth-century fiction) and then perhaps someone like Oliver Sachs (modern non-fiction). And I may yet do that, though I am now thinking I will focus just on medieval English literature.

The new project would emerge from that, but would be quite different, I think. I can't decide whether to call it The Talking Face or The Speaking Face. 

This would definitely be a long-range project, that would stretch at least from western medieval tradition into contemporary culture. It's built around the figurative trope by which a face is read as saying something. 

Here's an example from Jane Austen's Persuasion. 

Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which shewed his noticing of it. He gave her a momentary glance, -- a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, “That man is struck with you, -- and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again.”

So, direct speech is important here, as is the flash of sudden illumination on the face — a glance of brightness. 

I gave a talk last night at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in a series organised by the Centre for the History of Emotions, in which I sketched out some examples and possible lines of inquiry.  I have also talked a couple of times in the last few months about my favourite example from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: 

“To Troilus right wonder wel with alle
Gan for to like hire mevynge and hire chere,
Which somdel deignous was, for she let falle
Hire look a lite aside in swich manere,
Ascaunces, ‘What, may I nat stonden here?’
And after that hir lokynge gan she lighte,
That never thoughte hym seen so good a syghte.”

  (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, c. 1386) 

Here it's Criseyde's changing expression that is to attractive to Troilus.  Her face speaks, though in a rhetorical question, so there is an added degree of difficulty.  I do have a chapter on this example coming out in a book from Manchester UP later this year (that's my first tick: a pre-history to the project in published form). 

But I would like to move this new project into some broader territory: viz. 

• the relation between textual and visual representations (HUGE for me as I have no art history training)
• the extent to which a body can speak, as well as a face
• the relation between still and moving images (cinema??? probably not: just textual representations of moving faces)
• what I call interspecies ventriloquism - the way we project emotions and expressions onto animals (has anyone else done any academic study of lolcats???)
• philosophical and historical understandings of a face's capacity to speak
• the differences (?) the novel makes to this trope; and the question of direct speech
• the relation between text and image in medieval art at least (thinking about caption banners, banderoles, etc.)
• possibly extending into modern graphic novels

Ok, and lots of other things. Next post I might run through my talk from last night, but for now, can I just say this is a HUGE blog post, to start talking in public about my grant application that is so early in development. 

I have also started, in an extremely preliminary way, thinking about how this project might have a digital humanities component, if only to help identify and track examples of this trope in literary texts. 

But in the meantime I am starting a little collection of examples. So, my friends, if you come across examples where faces (or bodies) seem to speak or say things, I'd be extremely grateful if you could paste them in the comments box!! I'm mostly thinking of literary texts and textual examples, but any ideas from the visual arts would also be great.

First snag

OK, so after that bold announcement on Saturday about applying for another grant, I'm now wondering if I have rocks in my head!

Over the life of the Centre of Excellence, I have been given half-time teaching relief.  I decided last year to put all my teaching in one semester, so as to leave first semester free, in part for my actual study leave away from the university this year. With all the various other permutations of workload points, etc. this means I have a very manageable load this semester: a two-hour honours seminar on Tuesday morning, and a 90 minute lecture for third year students on Tuesday afternoon. OK, it would have been easier not to have these on the same day, but we have almost no control over subject timetabling.

It was also my plan to finish most of my various writing commitments by the end of June, so as to leave July free for preparation, and then the semester free(ish) for teaching itself.

However, I have only just finished my latest round of revisions on Medievalism and its Discontents  and sent it back to Tom on Saturday; I have another essay that my research assistant is doing final formatting on for Holly and Glenn; and there are two revise and resubmits (for Noah, and for Tom) that are due in two weeks at the latest. There's another essay (for Charles) whose deadline is approaching, too.

July turned out to be a big month for the Melbourne hub of the centre. We had our Middle English study day, a Sense, Sentiment and Compassion day, and a two day conference on Genre, Affect and Authority in early modern England. We have a couple of visitors at the moment, too. All fantastic!  but lots of events.

Then we are also helping run a series of seminars at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, around the work of David Rosetzky. I am giving a little talk there next week and am supposed to have my powerpoint ready for them a week early.

And the weekend to come is full of lovely family visits. And so early nights and good sleeping are called for. Trouble is, I was so beset by anxiety last night about all these commitments I had trouble sleeping, so the thought of another big grant to apply for and manage seems very daunting indeed right now.

Just a few more deep breaths ...  

Two grants: One

Wow, it's been so long since I posted I had to think quite hard about how to log in.

But here I am again, with a New Idea.

I began this blog in 2006 when I was applying for a big grant and was also a grant "shepherd" for my school. I thought I would lead by example and track the progress of applying for that grant in blog form.

Much has happened since then. The blog was almost immediately derailed with my breast cancer diagnosis, and became a very different kind of blog quite quickly. My team did eventually get our grant and I am about to submit the final report after its very happy and productive four year term.

Cancer, its treatment and afterlife has come and almost gone. (I'm in great health; have six monthly checkups; am taking no medication; and suffering only very minor side-effects from treatment.) My son, who was finishing primary school when I was diagnosed, is now at university. (Excuse me blinking while those six years of secondary school went by in a flash!)

And I have another huge grant. And am applying for another one.

Which brings me back to the blog. My current plan is to run two threads on this blog.  The first will be a space to think about my role in the grant I have: I am one of ten lead researchers in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. We are in the third of seven years and things are extremely busy. I'm in a different building from the rest of my colleagues in English; I'm surrounded by full-time researchers and a dedicated administrative and outreach team; I'm strongly networked to four other universities in Australia; and life is a constant round of astonishing visitors, study days, conferences, meetings. I have a half-time teaching load, and will be teaching two subjects this semester, starting next Tuesday.

But I am also going to apply for another grant. The lead time is long. I won't know if I've been successful for another twelve months; and I won't submit the final application till January next year. There is a part of me that wants to keep this application as private as possible. Because, you know, of the fear of public failure, etc. etc. But motivated by the same spirit in which I began this blog — and also kept it going when I got sick —I'm just going to write about it here anyway, pour encourager les autres. 

Grant culture in Australia is pretty tough. It's usually a condition of employment, confirmation, etc. that one applies for external grants, and having one at the right time can make a huge difference to employment and promotion prospects. Most schemes have around a 22% success rate. The scheme I'm applying for has an even lower rate. I'm hoping for several things: to enhance my own chances of success by blogging about my research idea and plans as a means of clarifying my own aims to myself; and making the blog itself part of the application, perhaps. I'm also hoping folk in the humanities might find it useful to see how the process of writing, thinking, revising, sharing and getting feedback works.

Thinking about how my current grant works is also part of the same process, as grant management is, I think, crucial to research success.

And in answer to your question about whether it's greedy to be applying for a big grant when I already have one, the simple answer is that it's my school's and faculty's policy that senior staff should certainly be applying for a second grant. Another simple answer is that this new grant would provide employment for some early career researchers. A third is that I really want to do the research, and it doesn't fit within the current research centre. If I got it, moreover, then a teaching position would open up for a medieval scholar (if only part-time and short-term) in my department, and then there would be another medieval colleague at Melbourne!

So I'm going to run two threads. This idea came to me while I went for a 10k run along the Merri Creek and the Yarra river in bright windy wintry sunshine. I may need to go for another run to think about the nifty titles for those two threads...

London-Cambridge return

I had meant to revive this blog while travelling, especially for family members not on facebook.  But there are so many distractions when travelling, to say nothing of the work one has to do, that facebook has been a good quick and dirty way to post photos and updates.

I have a busy week coming up, too, with three talks to give here at Queen Mary, though after Easter there will be more time for reflection, some archival work here in London, some writing, socialising and some more music, too.

I arrived at Queen Mary on Monday and Paul joined me on Tuesday. We are out at Mile End, a busy tube station surrounded by tiny supermarkets selling lots of prepared meals for students, lots of little Indian take-away and pizza places, a Costas coffee bar etc. The campus is a five minute walk from the Tube station, and our college is right on campus, too. I’m a two minute walk from the English department and the library; and there are little cafes, an Italian restaurant and a laundry right here. The residence is a new building that is completely obsessed by the threat of fire. You enter through a heavy door into a corridor, then open the heavy door into your entrance hall. It has a heavy fire door on the right that goes into the bedroom with bathroom that looks out over the canal, and a heavy fire door on the left that goes into the kitchen/living area that looks out over the eastern City of London. All very light and spacious: an utter contrast to the much darker but more personal corners of our Manhattan apartment.

The first few days I just stayed here, working, and finding paths and a park to run in. Then on Thursday morning we took the train up to Cambridge, so I haven’t seen anything of London itself yet.

The Cambridge symposium was a small, concentrated affair organised by Peter de Bolla, on “Knowing Affect”. No papers, but sixteen people from literature, philosophy and history taking part in focussed discussions. We had 11 or 12 readings, but didn’t always refer to them very closely. Some good discussions, though as always in emotion/affect studies there’s a lot of unresolved, and unresolvable discussion about terminology. What’s the relation between an affect, an emotion, a passion, a feeling and a mood? Well, it depends in part what discipline you come from, and the importance you give to language in shaping and forming the phenomenon. No interest, on this occasion, in psychology or the neurosciences; little interest in the post-human. An interesting assumption, from one speaker, that because I was a medievalist, my attitude to the medieval would be one of nostalgia.

I’m not sure what will emerge from this symposium, but it was a very good way of conducting discussions, without the distractions, as they would have been, of individual papers.  So a little like CHE’s methods collaboratories. Though I still can’t believe I missed the Melbourne one with William Reddy last week.

And of course, Cambridge is delightful. We gave ourselves enough time to wander around a bit on Thursday, climb St Mary’s Tower and take photos, have a fine lunch, buy a cashmere cardigan for £59 before heading over to Kings. Our room was not in college, alas, but in the “hostel”, an utterly modernised old building around the corner. We were up on the top floor with dormer windows and an automatic lighting system so oblique I had to get up in the middle of the night and switch off power to the room so the bathroom light and fan would go out.

Our meeting was in “the Wine Room”, a long dining room directly opposite King’s chapel; and dinner that night was in the Saltmarsh room; not unlike the Karagheusian room at Melbourne, though with a really excellent dinner of carpaccio tuna, suckling pig and a fine white and gold dessert: all kinds of delicate and differently textured delicious things.

On Friday at lunchtime our host walked us over to the chapel, which was closed to the public as they set it up for a concert. I had been there before – oh dear – forty years ago (sigh), but had forgotten how immense it is. And how clean, dry and warm, even as the bitterly cold winds swarmed around the vast quadrangles and along the river behind us. Inside, the organist was playing scraps of Zadok the Priest, and I was instantly taken back to a record of music from King’s that my father had bought years ago and that I played over and over: Allegri’s Miserere, Zadok the Priest, a bunch of hymns, Orlando Gibbons’ This is the Record of John, etc. etc. The cover of that record shows a bright blue sky cut into up by the elaborate stone carving of the Chapel's distinctive front. Then all of a sudden, while Pete was explaining the history of the Rubens painting at the far end of the chapel, the organist pulled out all the stops and launched into “All People that on Earth do Dwell.” Fantastic vibrations of sound – the only way to describe them – across the dark wood of the choir, along the broad flagstones on the floor, up the fluted columns, already transfigured by light coming through the towering stained glass windows and up and across the delicate but authoritative fan vaulting (so strong it’s possible to walk on the top of, apparently).

We got back to Mile End at 7.30, and toyed with the idea of bringing home a pizza from the Indian take-away place, but steeled our resolve and walked back to France house, dumped our bags, put on several more layers of clothes and walked back out again, along the canal, then through the park to Hackney village, where there are some good-looking restaurants and pubs, a deli where we bought some beautiful cheese, a hairdresser where I got a great hair cut, a bike hire place we may investigate, and several pubs. Eventually we found a pub that had a woodfired oven, and a great pizza menu. We ate a gorgeous gongonzola number (I am ever on the quest for the perfect gorgonzola and leek pizza), drank a glass of red wine and watched the first half of a soccer (sorry, football) match between England and San Marino, before walking home in the brisk dark English spring.

This morning we woke to snow. Paul is reading Paul Strohm’s stories and chuckling out loud, and I am catching up on the blog before we head out for lunch at my sister’s house in Barnes. Looks as the snow is already turning to rain and slush...

A Windy Day

So most of the snow has melted, and the skies were clear and bright today. But the wind!  It was below freezing, and the wind itself was certainly making it feel colder. We had a big agenda today, and did most of it, but it was a struggle, as always, to get up when the alarm rang. Paul had finished an artilce and I had finished the introduction to a special issue of a journal, and we were up late to send them off.

Joel made breakfast with the astonishingly rich and juicy blackberries we are eating in the middle of winter; and we headed out. We rode the subway down to 86th, then walked across Central Park, just south of the Jacqueline Onassis reservoir. Lots of folks running the circuit. I've found it is possible ot run, even when there is snow lining the track, but your hands, ears and face do get very cold. Running in the cold wind would have been pretty nasty on the lungs, I would think.

We were at the Guggenheim by 10.30. I'd seen the name Kandinsky advertised, but in fact this was just a tiny exhibition off the side, of his work between 1911 and 1913. The rest was the work of the post-war Japanese collective, Gutai: some wonderfully inventive works. And what an amazingly beautiful building it is. As you walk down and around, it's amazing to think how much space and light there is around each work. I couldn't help wondering whether the little inner wall would meet modern health and safety standards: it felt just a little low and easy to fall over...  But one of the great things about exhibitions here is that you just go in, start at one end of the spiral and move at your own pace, but in the one direction. So in a group, you don't have to keep checking where the others are: they are either ahead of you or behind...

We then walked back over to Lexington and got the subway down to Astor Place, then walked through Washington Square to the Blue Note jazz cafe for brunch, with a sextet from the Juilliard school. Joel recognised the bass player as having toured Australia with Terence Blanchard last year; and the pianist, Jahann Sweet, is someone he has seen on YouTube. Not a great lunch, but washed down with a mimosa, and some really nice playing, all around the music of Charles Mingus.

After this we headed out into the wind again, and walked quite a few blocks over to Roosevelt Park, where we had read there were some Chinese New Year festivities on; and indeed, we caught the last stages of a procession, complete with long dragons, lions, lots of floats sponsored by community groups, fire twirlers, martial arts demonstrations, and some dancing girls, wearing high heels, very short sparkled blue and silver costumes, long plaits and tassels. Over the parade, people were letting off little crackers, and tossing bunches of little sparkles and streamers. As we walked away, we saw a couple of the dancing girls, their cheerful smiles fading to grimaces and tears as they succumbed to the bitter cold and wind. We also saw a little puddle in the road, filled with coloured tissues, streamers, foils and fragments of colour.

Feeling pretty confident of my navigational skills, even though my phone had run out of battery and we had no map, we wandered back through Little Italy, looking for a decent cup of coffee and a little cafe. Lots of restaurants, but we eventually found a little cafe where we shared a couple of canoli and I had a goodly strong coffee. It takes ages, every time you sit down or get up again, to put on or take off coats, scarves, gloves and hats. But it's worth having all this stuff on when you head off out into the wind again. We were going to head up to the Strand, and again, I was navigating us ok, but then I found the NYU bookshop and I nipped in to pick up Carolyn Dinshaw's How Soon Is Now, which is essential reading for the last chapter of the book I am writing with Tom, who will be here in just over a week. So the writing goes on. 

The Wintry Mix

We've been here nearly a week now, and have settled into a little routine. We have to set the alarm or we would sleep in through the dark and quiet. We make the coffee, experiment with different cereals, and then struggle with the tiny shower and compare methods of avoiding the cling of the plastic shower curtain....  Paul and I head to the computers and check the night's emails before getting to work. It's been a bit slow, but the introduction to my special issue of Exemplaria is coming along nicely now. I'm planning to finish it in a few days, if possible. Joel reads, or explores youtube on the ipad, or plays piano, and sometimes heads out for a walk with the new camera.

After lunch some or all of us head out for another walk or an expedition. On Wednesday I went down to NYU with Joel and picked up my ID card, which means I can browse the library's terrific online holdings from home, if I don't want to spend the day in the library. We also wandered over to Little Italy and found a terrible cappuccino and a magnificent canoli in a little cafe. Most nights we are heading out to hear some jazz. The last two times, at the Dizzy's at the Lincoln Centre, and at the Blue Note, you get just the one set while you eat an average pub-style dinner. But the music has been excellent. It's great having a piano in the apartment. When Joel feels inspired after the previous evening's concert, he plays well and freely. But it's a bit clangy, and needs a tune, and he says it makes playing scales and doing technical work rather difficult. That's the story, anyway.

Today the news is full of the impending storm. It's already started snowing, and they are threatening up to eight inches by this time tomorrow. But before then, it's the "wintry mix" of snow, sleet and rain. By Sunday it will be sunny and bright. It's hard to know how it will affect what we do today. We were planning to go to MOMA this afternoon as it's free admission after 4.00 on Friday. We'll see how that goes.  Right now, back to my intro.

The First Day

The day kind of started at 4.30 this morning: the jetlagged brain leaps into action and has to be forcibly restrained with slow deep breathing and sheer determination to keep the eyes closed and the body horizontal. I was still awake, I think, around 6.00 but the next thing I knew Joel was knocking on the door saying it was 12.30.

The flight over was very smooth, though Qantas is now clearly economising on food and luxuries. I missed my chamomile tea... But what is normally the worst part of the flight — sitting bolt upright, desperate with twitchy aching legs on a domestic connection from LAX across to the east coast — is much easier and faster when it's done in a big 747. Travelling with family is so much easier than travelling on your own. Who cares if a son or partner climbs over you in the middle of the night? Not me. And can you leave your bags in the airport when you go to the loo? Yes you can!

Our apartment here, which we found through sabbaticalhomes.com, is fabulous. Up on 108th and Broadway, the streets are much quieter than the theatre district where we stayed in 2009. We have a small bedroom, a small bathroom and small kitchen, but a decent sized loungeroom and separate study. There are three desks for working at. And there is an upright piano. Our landlord is a guitarist and music professor. It's also spotlessly clean. I will sort out photos soon, I hope. We're up on the second floor, and the apartment is an L-shape, built around central courtyards and inlets. Not a huge amount of natural light, but it's warm and cosy. It's good being in a place with books and music.

We are also travelling with a friend who's with us for a few days, visiting her daughter who's here on exchange but who has become quite unwell. So our joys are tempered by concern for this other family.

The three of us have just walked down Riverside Park for thirty blocks. I love that we can walk uninterrupted by the traffic lights at the end of every block, and I can see myself running there (with hat, gloves, and long pants, of course). We walked about thirty blocks, then stopped for black bean soup and quesadillas, before Paul and I came back, walking along Broadway, to meet our landlord's friend and pick up the second key. Joel is off wandering on his own, re-orienting himself.

It's now 4.30 pm, and I think we might now head out again, to get the last of the afternoon light and do some shopping for food: apparently the markets around here are pretty good. I have borrowed Robyn's fabulous coat; I have a fleecy hat my mother made me years ago; I have fleecy gloves I bought in New York in 2005; and I have a lambswool scarf I bought in Edinburgh in 2000. It's 29º or -2º. Not too windy; no rain; no snow. So with the right gear, it's nothing but bracingly pleasant.

Here's our building:http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/the-manchester

I'll see if I can link to googlemaps to show where we are:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=255+W+108th+St,+New+York,+10025,+United+States&hl=en&ll=40.795358,-73.961935&spn=0.042041,0.057421&geocode=FQOabgIdClqX-w&hnear=255+W+108th+St,+New+York,+10025,+United+States&t=m&z=14:

Pre-departure

It's Monday night. On Friday morning we say our last goodbyes to all the animals, leave the house in the care of our trusty house-sitters, and head to the airport for three months away.

I am planning to return to this blog to track our adventures once we get going, and to meditate on the idea of "leave" but an important part of the pre-departure travail is to keep track of hours and days as they pass so quickly, and as we lurch from task to task.

Among those tasks are these:

• tidy house to reasonable degree and make sure all instructions for animals and all the odd little ways of an old house are reasonably intelligible
• stock up on chicken, fish, and cat food
• organise ESTA application for Joel (done!)
• print out all itineraries, letters of invitation, details of access to our New York apartment so they will actually let us in to the United States
• work out what books and papers to print and take
• make back up of computer files on ancient hard drive; and thank goodness for Dropbox
• take delivery (tomorrow?) of new laptop; and arrange IT consultation to upload software (Wednesday?). Ancient hard drive now says it will take 56 hours to copy 10,000 items. That can't possibly be right.
• read two more PhD chapters; do two more performance appraisals; have two more delightful lunches; have two more research team meetings; review two videos of self talking about the research centre; introduce three research students to lovely replacement supervisor
• write a book proposal and a special issue proposal
• write (i.e. start) introduction to special issue of journal
• finish Chapter Six (these two may not be done by Friday, I now realise)
• have meetings with two research groups
• washing, ironing, packing, finding of gloves
• keep study tidy so I don't panic
• buy new travel bag? Maybe not. I went on line at Hunts, and found a lovely soft leather one for $1500. I don't think so!!

Not all these things will get done. But many of them *have* to get done. But for once, heading off on leave, I'm not taking a huge big research project with me, so the archive isn't a problem. I'll be finishing a book, though, and writing up two papers (one already in draft form); and then when I return early May I'll have another three months before I start teaching, so I think it will be a productive leave. I'm already missing my home, and don't like to think what it will be like to put Joel on the plane to come home at the end of February. But still. You know what they say. It's an adventure; and travelling en famille is such a rare pleasure for us. We'll all feel better when we get on the plane...

Six Years Down

It is six years, almost to the day, since I went under the knife. I have just had my annual mammogram, ultrasound and review with my wonderful surgeon. I wrote about Suzanne a lot in the first months (here, here and here, especially) : she was a revelation to me, about how a brilliant technician could also be a calm, intelligent leader in the workplace. From my various encounters this morning, it's clear her staff adore her as much as I do.

What's the upshot, then, six years down the track?

• No sign of recurrence
• No swelling in arm (lymphoedema)
• No desire for reconstructive surgery (Suzanne asks each year, but I'm not at all ashamed of my scar and the deep indentation along one side of one breast)
• Some residual pain (from radiotherapy: it will be lifelong, but I'm now under instruction not to  use the really heavy weights at the gym)
• Bone density normal
• Menopause ...
• No medications (nothing; currently not taking anything of any kind; no vitamins; nothing)
• Weight under control (obesity is an indicator for breast cancer)
• Reduced alcohol consumption (alcohol is a BIG indicator for breast cancer)
• Some residual feeling that powers of concentration aren't what they were, but a gradual realisation that this might be picking up now I am no longer taking tamoxifen
• Reminder of sense that I am glad I did not have to go through chemotherapy or mastectomy (both of which have very long recovery times and difficult after-effects)

So all in all, I reckon that's about as good as it gets. I am very conscious that compared to many women I have got off relatively lightly, and also received (and been able to pay for) consistently superlative and compassionate health care. 

Last night I was talking with a friend who'd had a much rarer, more difficult blood cancer. We agreed that everytime you go in for these tests you kind of hold your breath for the day before. I guess eventually it gets easier. For me the five year mark last year was really important as it meant the end of the daily tablets and the monthly injections. This one seems to mark the beginning of a new phase, as every year out I am absorbed back into the general population with only an average risk of breast cancer.

So good am I feeling about this, and so much am I enjoying blogging again, I am even going to change my profile text in the next day or so.

Cheers!!

Teaching the History of Emotions

This year the Faculty of Arts introduced its controversial new coursework program. Until this year, the PhD in Arts at Melbourne was taught entirely by research thesis, externally assessed by examiners who had no contact with the student. Over the first year of their enrolment, our new students now must enrol in one of seven 2-hour fortnightly workshops, for which they write a 5000 word essay; and two intensive units, for which they write essays of 2500 words each. This program has not met with universal acclaim. It's taking students and staff a while to get used to coursework that seems like an extra imposition that is assessed, and yet doesn't really "count" in the final assessment for the PhD.

Nevertheless, on we go. I have co-taught both a workshop ("Researching Texts") which will finish this Friday after two semesters; and an elective, "The History of Emotions." The latter finished today. We taught it in four three-hour sessions ("we" being me and Stephanie and Sarah, the two post-doctoral fellows in the Centre for the History of Emotions). Penelope, our new Education and Outreach officer, also audited the subject: her experience with psychology and art was invaluable at several strategic points in discussion.

Both subjects have been, for me, a delight to teach. I've not done that much collaborative teaching, really (not having medieval colleagues makes it tricky, for one thing), and I really enjoyed sharing ideas and responsibility for organisation and for leading discussion.

The students for both subjects ranged extremely widely. Most of the students in Researching Texts were from literature (not just English) and creative writing and cultural studies and performance. The students in the History of Emotions were even more diverse. None from literature; quite a few from history; but also archaeology, philosophy, cinema studies, linguistics, etc. Another student audited. Someone working on C15 Italian texts; another on C17 witchcraft pamphlets; another on C17 Italian art; but mostly modern topics: Heidegger; the films of Sofia Coppola and rococco style; the social phenomena of languages as they die out; the politics and representation of Somalian piracy; a history of the animal rights movement in Australia, etc. So, about as diverse a bunch as you could find. Some were candid about choosing the intensive sheerly for timetable reasons. Some had very little understanding of what the field of the history of emotions involved. But through sheer intellectual curiosity, and academic courtesy, and the impending sense of having to write an essay within a month, by the time of our last session this morning, when we asked them all to bring along an object, a text, an image, an idea for their essay, all but one (who is preoccupied with other deadlines at the moment)  had been able to think their way quite quickly into this very diverse and complex field. They spoke eloquently and passionately. It was clear that wherever they had begun, many of them had found some really interesting places to go with this material. I'm really looking forward to reading their essays.

We didn't want to overburden them with reading, as you'll see from the course outline below. That's one of the limitations of an intensive subject. Anyone wanting to familiarise themself with the field could do worse than start with Susan Matt and with Jan Plamper's interview, rightly becoming a canonical standard in the field.

Of all the things we read, my favorite was the Monique Scheer essay. Scheer uses Bourdieu and practice theory to build a model of "emotional practice" (based on the habitus) that is attentive to somatic as well as cognitive practices, and to social context without being overly restrictive or programmatic. There's more work for me to do on this, but I think this has the potential, as Scheer says, to bypass the quarrel between emotion and affect. The essay was a little divisive, though. The Heideggerian, the archaeologist and the cinema studies student liked it as much as I did; others less familiar with Bourdieu found it harder work.

I'm currently thinking about two episodes in Chaucer and Malory where grown men (Absolon and Lancelot) are described as weeping like a child who has been beaten. The concept of emotional practice will, I think, help me think about the relation between these very different narrative contexts and the relative similarity of body language (both are kneeling, and both cannot speak after they weep) and the quasi-proverbial nature of the simile. So that's good.

Tomorrow I teach Book IV of Troilus and Criseyde; on Friday we have our "graduation" from Researching Texts, complete with a workshop from an actor who'll help them with presentation skills (relaxation, breathing, speaking). Next week, two lectures on John Forbes and Book V of the Troilus. That is the class that has been bringing astonishing baked goods for morning tea all semester. Wonder what they'll produce for our picnic lunch after class?

History of Emotions PhD Elective, 2012

An elective convened by Stephanie Downes, Sarah Randles and Stephanie Trigg, meeting in four 3-hour sessions between October 8 and 16.

Assessment: One 2500 word essay on a topic of your choice, due Monday 5^th November.

Readings  will be posted on the LMS site from Wednesday, 3^rd October. A longer bibliography will be made available at the first session.

Session One: Monday, October 8, 11.00 – 2.00.

Room 210 (Old Arts)

Bring your lunch, and we’ll supply tea/coffee.

Part One: Orientation to the History of Emotions: From Heart to Head

Questions for discussion:

·      What are our sources for the ‘history of emotions’?

·      What do emotions ‘do’?

·      How do we write the history of emotions?

Readings:

Matt, Susan. ‘Current Emotion Research in History: Or, Doing History from the Inside Out,’ Emotion Review 3 (2011): 117-124.

Plamper, Jan. ‘The History of Emotions: An Interview with William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein, and Peter Stearns,’ History and Theory 49 (May 2010): 237-65.

Part Two: The History of Tears

Questions for discussion:

·      What is the relation between emotion and tears?

·      Do tears have a history?

·      Is this history gendered?

Readings:

Thomas Dixon, ‘The Tears of Mr Justice Willes,’ Journal of Victorian Culture (2011): 1-23.

Lyn A. Blanchfield, ‘Prologomenon: Considerations of Weeping and Sincerity in the Middle Ages,’ Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History, ed. Elina Gertsman (New York: Routledge, 2012), xxi-xxx.

* * * * * * * *

Session Two: Tuesday, October 9, 1.15 – 4.15

Room 209 (Old Arts)

We’ll supply tea/coffee and cake.

Part One: Private Grief

Readings:

Freud, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1917), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Vol. 14, 237-258. http://www.barondecharlus.com/uploads/2/7/8/8/2788245/freud_-_mourning_and_melancholia.pdf

Shakespeare, Hamlet (any edition).

Melancholia, dir. Lars von Trier (2012). Check out this YouTube trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzD0U841LRM; and we’ll try and screen selected scenes.

Gail Kern Paster, ‘The pith and marrow of our attribute: dialogue of skin and skull in Hamlet and Holbein’s The Ambassadors,’ Textual Practice 23.2 (2009): 247-265.

Part Two: Public Shame

Readings:

The Apology to the Stolen Generations: http://www.dfat.gov.au/indigenous/apology-to-stolen-generations/national_apology.html

Sara Ahmed, ‘Shame Before Others,’ in The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004).

* * * * * * * *

Session Three: Monday, October 15, 11.00 – 2.00

 Potter Gallery

(luncheon arrangements to be determined)

Part One: Emotions and Images

Heather Gaunt of the Potter Gallery will lead discussions of selected works in the Potter collection

Part Two: Emotions and Objects

Guy Fletcher, ‘Sentimental Value,’ The Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (2009): 55-65.

Roberta Gilchrist, ‘Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Late Medieval Burials,’ Medieval Archaology 52 (2008): 119-159.

* * * * * * *

Session Four: Tuesday, October 16^th, 9.00 – 12.00

Part One: Where to from here?

Bring a text, an object, an idea, a source, a problem, and be prepared to introduce it for a few minutes.

Part Two: Research directions

Theorising happiness, and other emotions…

Reading:

Monique Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and is that what makes them have a history)?’ History and Theory 51 (2012): 193-220.