Emotions in Turmoil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Painful Emotions
Emotions in Turmoil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Painful Emotions
16th -17th June 2025
The University of Western Australia, Perth
Keynote speakers:
Daniel M. Gross (University of California Irvine)
Robbert Boddice (Tampere University)
Painful emotions such as grief, anger, shame, and depression profoundly shape individual lives and society at large. However, they are often hidden from view and have frequently been stigmatized in the past, as they are today. Through a multi-faceted lens, this symposium explores how these and other painful emotions have influenced broader historical, cultural, and political change. Focusing and revealing the politics that frame and delimit feelings, we invite submissions of abstracts for 20-minute papers that address the symposium’s theme from various disciplinary perspectives. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- The role of shame and other painful emotions in historical and cultural transformations
- Representations of painful emotions in literature
- Neuroplasticity and its relation to emotional experiences
- The impact of painful emotions such as grief, anger, shame, and depression on individual and collective identities
- Narrative and rhetorical frameworks shaping and shaped by emotions
- The politics of painful emotions and their expression in different historical periods
- Medical humanities approach to understanding and treating painful emotions
- Cross-cultural studies of emotional experiences and their societal impacts
Submission Guidelines
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, along with a brief biographical note of no more than 150 words to melissa
E-mails should have the subject line: Submission Emotions in Turmoil – Your name
Submission should include the following:
- A brief bio including author(s), affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme, city and country, E-mail address (no more than 150 words)
- Identify the discipline of your presentation, such as literary studies, history or others
- Title of the proposed paper
- Abstract of paper (no more than 300 words)
Key information:
- All abstracts and papers must be in English
- Deadline for abstract submission: 31 January 2025
- Notification of acceptance: 1 March 2025
For any inquiries, please contact the symposium organizers Yujie Wei and Melissa Black via email melissa