A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.
Feb 14, 2024•7 min
A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.
Feb 14, 2024•7 min
A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.
Feb 14, 2024•7 min
A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.
Feb 14, 2024•8 min
It's the final episode of the series, but what have we learned about emotions past, present, and future? Thomas Dixon, Sarah Chaney and Richard Firth-Godbehere reflect back on what they have learned from the series, discuss what emotions might look like in the future, whether we should stop telling people “Your emotions are valid”, and what historians of emotion looking back on our era might think in a few hundred years’ time. What will future people think about the roles of - for instance - psy...
Aug 26, 2022•45 min
Do wellbeing apps and emotional mood trackers make you feel nervous, furious, or happy? In this episode, historian of emotions and author Richard Firth-Godbehere goes in search of the science, technology, ethics, and feelings behind emotional AI. Fellow historian Thomas Dixon acts a guinea pig for Richard, trying out some emotion-tracking apps. with emotionally mixed results, while Richard speaks to historians, ethicists, and others about the theory of “basic emotions” that hampers a lot of emot...
Aug 19, 2022•44 min
When it comes to childhood trauma, do our bodies keep the score, and with what emotional impacts? Historian of child psychology Emma Sutton finds out about the recent explosion of interest in "trauma-informed" approaches and their impact on family relationships. She tries out some trauma-informed therapy herself, and discusses with therapists and experts what this approach can mean for dealing with the aftermath of adverse childhood experiences - including the additional harm done to families wh...
Aug 12, 2022•42 min
Should mindfulness and happiness take their place on the school curriculum alongside maths and literacy? Thomas Dixon asks whether 200-year-old ideas about love, emotions, and primary education are still relevant today. He visits three schools with different approaches to emotions, and meets experts on mental health and wellbeing - asking whether there is a crisis in young people's mental health today, whether schools should be part of the solution, and if so what that solution might look like. ...
Aug 05, 2022•48 min
Unexpected item in bagging area! Machines can provoke many emotions, including rage and anxiety. But can they also care? In Episode 2 of "Living With Feeling", historian of nursing Sarah Chaney meets some care robots and discusses with experts what these machines are for, and what they can offer. Sarah probes the potential and the limitations of care robots - and looks at historical ideas from earlier eras about emotional qualities, including fortitude and compassion, which would be shown by the...
Jul 29, 2022•39 min
In this first episode of "Living With Feeling" - our new series about emotions in the 21st century - priest and writer Giles Fraser and psychotherapist Philippa Perry join Thomas Dixon for a lively conversation, tackling some big questions about the place of emotions in modern culture. Philippa, Giles, and Thomas discuss whether people are too ready to interpret painful or difficult emotions as signs of mental illness, and whether it is always true that "Your emotions are valid". Giles confesses...
Jul 22, 2022•44 min
Welcome to "Living With Feeling", our new podcast series about emotions in the 21st Century. Please subscribe via Apple, Spotify, Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Search for "Living With Feeling" or follow one of the links below. APPLE: https://apple.co/3aM5Rrb SPOTIFY: https://spoti.fi/3uWhKSi ACAST: https://shows.acast.com/living-with-feeling/episodes
Jul 18, 2022•2 min
What is the mind? Can we think of it as a ‘space’? Where might we look for the mind and what might be going on inside it when we experience solitude? These are some of the questions addressed in this episode. We hear from neuroscientist Sarah Garfinkel about the mind as an interface between brain and heart, and historian of psychoanalysis Akshi Singh about the mind as a space contained in objects that evoke memory and unlock experience. The poet and philosopher Denise Riley describes the imagine...
Oct 30, 2020•32 min
As part of the 'Spaces of Solitude' series, Hetta Howes presents a conversation between Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, and the most Revd Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. Discussion ranges from personal experiences of solitude and silence, to ‘thin-places’ and speaking in tongues. Presented by Hetta Howes Produced by Natalie Steed
Oct 30, 2020•36 min
In this episode, Hetta Howes and Charlie Williams look at experiences of imprisonment and solitary confinement, asking how we can understand the effects of enforced isolation on the human psyche? They speak first to Lisa Guenther, who charts the rise and rise of solitary confinement in the United States and the links between this practice and the long history of slavery. Next, they hear from Andrea Brady about the ‘Jail Poems’ of Beat Poet Bob Kaufman and the perspective they provide on imprison...
Oct 28, 2020•34 min
As part of the 'Spaces of Solitude' series, Hetta Howes speaks to researchers Lisa Guenther and Shokoufeh Sakhi. Lisa is a Canadian philosopher and activist who works on critical prison studies; Shokoufeh is a former political prisoner from Iran who writes about imprisonment and the self. In this conversation, they discuss the histories and philosophies of solitary confinement, and the many ways that carceral solitariness is physically and emotionally experienced. Presented by Hetta Howes Produc...
Oct 28, 2020•46 min
The German sociologist Georg Simmel famously claimed that ‘one nowhere feels as lonely and lost as in the metropolitan crowd’. Hetta Howes and Charlie Williams take a walk through London to explore this classic idea of loneliness and the many ways of being alone in a city. They hear from Matthew Beaumont about the long tradition of ‘nightwalkers’, a mantle applied to vagrants, sex workers, migrants and bohemians, all searching for different opportunities in the city after dark. Hetta speaks to L...
Oct 26, 2020•37 min
Hetta Howes and James Morland continue their exploration of solitude in this episode, pondering the perilous places we sometimes enter in the search for aloneness. James introduces listeners to the graveyard poets of the 18th century, who sought out places of darkness to explore their biggest fears and deepest anxieties. Hetta then speaks to Josh Cohen about Emily Dickinson’s reclusive tendencies, the imagined wildernesses she created locked away in her room, and the ways in which, historically,...
Oct 23, 2020•36 min
How did gardens come to play such a key part in the history of solitude? Hetta Howes sets out to answer this question with James Morland, who moves from the idyllic but complex seclusion of Eden to the refuge of queer ecology in Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage to offer a reading of gardens as spaces of escape. Laura Seymour discusses how 17th-century gardens provided a sense of liberty in the face of political furore, and Stephen Bending talks us through design versus wilderness and th...
Oct 21, 2020•36 min
In the opening episode of our series, Hetta Howes and Barbara Taylor take us on a journey through the history of spiritual solitude. Why have people of faith chosen to be alone throughout the ages and what perils do they face in doing so? Hetta meets Hilary Powell to discuss the secluded lives of medieval anchorites and hermits, and Revd Erica Longfellow to learn about the sociable religious landscape of the 17th century. Later she speaks to James Morland about the natural world as a space for s...
Oct 19, 2020•37 min
An autobiographical essay on solitude, walking, the natural world, and emotions by the novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison. Melissa reflects on what solitude has meant to her - and to others - from her childhood and early adult years to the recent period of lockdown in the summer of 2020. Recorded outside in the Suffolk countryside, this essay explores Melissa's feelings about living on her own and how she finds her most honest self through solitude in nature. She also reflects on what i...
Oct 16, 2020•19 min
Developing Emotions is a pioneering programme of lessons designed to promote emotional literacy and emotional awareness in school children. It has been developed as a collaboration between the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London and TKAT Multi-Academy Trust. In February and March 2020 the lessons were piloted in eight schools, including Napier Primary Academy in Kent. In this episode, Thomas Dixon visits Napier School and talks with teachers there about the ...
Jul 17, 2020•19 min
Tiffany Watt Smith looks back to 1930s London to discover what a rumbled drag ball can teach us about schadenfreude – the joy we feel in another’s misfortune. This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.
Jul 01, 2020•9 min
Agnes Arnold-Forster traces the history of nostalgia, from homesick Swiss mercenaries to contemporary US politics, and examines its effects on the professional lives of healthcare practitioners working in the NHS. This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.
Jul 01, 2020•7 min
Join James Morland on his journey through poetic images of loneliness, as he wanders towards its emotional meaning. This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.
Jul 01, 2020•9 min
In this episode, Ed Brooker finds surprising connections between bank holidays, Charles Darwin, and that most gluttonous of terms, happiness. This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.
Jul 01, 2020•8 min
As part of 'The Sound of Anger' series, cultural historian Fern Riddell speaks with Thomas Dixon about gender, emotions, and politics. Fern is an expert on the histories of suffragism and sexuality and the author of a biography of the radical suffragette Kitty Marion, called 'Death In Ten Minutes'. Fern and Thomas debate the meaning of 'anger', how it looks and feels, whether it is always expressed in violence, and what place it had in the suffragettes' struggle.
Sep 18, 2019•29 min
Do we live in an age of rage? And if so, what can we learn about our furious feelings, and how to control them, from the experiences and ideas of great thinkers in the past? Those are the questions explored in a pair of thought-provoking and darkly funny new audio dramas by playwright Craig Baxter, commissioned by the Living With Feeling project at Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for the History of the Emotions, and directed and produced by Natalie Steed. SENECA ANNOYED is a philosophic...
Sep 17, 2019•20 min
Historian of emotions Thomas Dixon completes his personal odyssey through the history, feelings, and meanings of angry emotions. In this episode, he asks whether domestic, everyday anger is the same thing as political anger, and wonders about the relationship between angry dads, angry protesters, and emotional health. Thomas hates his own anger and dreams of a world with no anger, but learns reasons that others see it as politically essential. Backstage at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival in Sage...
Sep 17, 2019•38 min
Historian of emotions Thomas Dixon continues his exploration of angry emotions. In this episodes he tries to discover how anger sounds, feels, and looks. Again, diversity seems to be the norm. Different bodies feel furious in different ways, and not all cultures have the same ways of expressing emotions. Thomas hears from opera singer Lore Lixenberg, political journalist Jo-Anne Nadler, and historians Imke Rajamani and Fern Riddell. He also introduces listeners to one of his favourite books abou...
Sep 14, 2019•29 min
As part of 'The Sound of Anger' series, psychologist Jim Russell is in conversation with historian of emotions Thomas Dixon about the idea of "anger" and basic emotions. Jim is an internationally recognised expert on the psychology of emotions and explains Paul Ekman's ideas about 'basic emotions' and the problems with the theory, especially in relation to facial expressions.
Sep 14, 2019•16 min