GRK 1876 represented at the History of Emotions Symposium Helsinki, 7-8 November 2018

A blog post by Ulrike Steinert.


This two-day workshop on the history of emotions, which took place at the University of Helsinki on November 7-8, 2018, was organised by the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (University of Helsinki), the Brain and Mind Laboratory at Aalto University, and by the Aalto University Experience Platform. The key question of the symposium was how we can study the emotions of people in past cultures, and to which extent research on emotion in present-day western societies as biological, cognitive and social processes can fruitfully widen and enrich studies of emotions in antiquity. The symposium brought together scholars from neuroscience, history, literature, sociology and language technology and aimed at gaining a deeper picture of how emotions are represented in historical sources, reaching back to ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamian civilizations.

Helsinki University Main Library (outside), courtesy of the University.

In their welcome address, the co-organizers Saana Svärd and Mikko Sams pointed out the extraordinary potential of the topic for interdisciplinary collaboration, and for bringing into dialogue different fields of research that have developed partially conflicting definitions of what emotion is. The differing approaches and findings of the various disciplines involved in emotion research raise questions as to how emotions as complex neurobiological processes may be related to the ways in which they are experienced, conceptualized, categorized, evaluated, and to which extent we can trace developments in cultural views of emotions in relation to social-historical changes. 
The programme available at the workshop web-page.

The historian and anthropologist William M. Reddy (Duke University) opened the symposium addressing “Problems of Change and Periodization in the History of Emotions”. Pointing out the controversial nature of identifying clear historical dates for changes in emotional experience, Reddy gave an overview of how viewpoints of historians have changed from early studies that presented a static view of emotions as “fixed features of human nature” to reappraisals in newer research arguing that there is not only an array of different “emotional styles” in any society or historical period, but that emotions are nothing “fixed”, but instead “vary widely from one place to another”. Drawing on insights from psychology on the dynamic relation between emotion vocabulary and experience, Reddy proposed a similar dynamic relationship between historical changes in emotion language, affective experiences, and self-representations. Arguing for a kind of dialectical relationship, Reddy highlighted that emotions both shape and are shaped by historical trends, being never merely descriptive, but also political and embedded in changing social and historical norms. Outlining long-term shifts in the views on emotions in relation to body and self (or the psychic realm), Reddy underlined that changes in emotional expression can best be detected in times of deep conflicts, contradictions or breakdown of social norms and religious doctrines.

Heini Saarimäki (Aalto University) presented an overview of insights from current neuroscientific research on emotion, introducing experimental methods employed to elucidate the neural basis of emotional experiences (especially imaging techniques (fMRI) measuring the brain activity of participants being presented with emotional stimuli, complemented by emotion induction through narratives, images and movies, and by the validation of participants regarding the intensity and dynamics of felt emotions during induction). Saarimäki highlighted crucial results from brain imaging, namely that emotions activate overlapping areas in the brain (i.e. not only one area) which are associated with different functions (sensations, action readiness, memory, etc.). These experiments also show that brain activities differ from each other, when different emotions are elicited in participants. Of remarkable insight for social scientists and historians, Saarimäki further reported on the results of experiments comparing the physiological responses (e.g. heartbeat) and brain activity of persons participating in collective rituals in the roles of observers and actors. Similar comparisons were made for situations of social interaction, in which one person acted as listener and another as reporter of emotional narratives. In the first set of experiments, researchers found remarkably close similarities in the physiological responses affecting the participant-actors and observers, especially if they stood in a personal relationship. The second experiment confirmed a close correlation between the level of synchrony in neural activity and the level of mutual understanding between narrator and listener.

Two speakers presented their ongoing research projects on emotions in Finnish social media. Krista Lagus (University of Helsinki) analysed long- and short-term developments in the discourses related to experiences of fear and joy. This research was able to identify key themes such as social relationships, love, pets, one’s living environment, and religion, that are at the centre of attention of individuals posting in the most important Finnish social media platform (Suomi24). Lagus’ study has detected a significant reduction of joy-related posts and a rise in fear-related discourse for the years between 2001 and 2015, which raises questions with regard to conclusions about “national emotional states” and the level of overall happiness and satisfaction of Finnish people as affected by larger socio-economic factors and changes. Jussi Pakkasvirta (University of Helsinki) discussed his ongoing project on “Citizen Mindscapes” investigating “national emotions” and identities in the light of contrasting stereotypes vis-à-vis other cultures (in particular Latin American cultures), as they are encountered in personalized content shared in online media networks. Significantly, this study indicates a striking stability with regard to particular negative stereotypes associated with Latin Americans.

Conference discussion, photo by Tero Alstola.

The second day of the symposium resumed with two papers on emotions in the Roman world. Ville Vuolanto (University of Tampere) spoke about hope as a future-oriented positive disposition encountered in texts of the Roman Empire. As he showed, the analysis of concepts of hope needs to be based on the “analysis of practices of everyday life”, and that such concepts evolve and change within different pre-Christian and Christian contexts. While in the Stoic tradition of the Greco-Roman world, hope was regarded “as a passion that could lead humans away from rational life”, hope was at the same time seen as “future-oriented expectation”, linked with a positive sense of continuity and with life strategies creating meaningfulness, which were cultivated by Roman elites, in particular in connection with topics such as family/offspring, property and afterlife.

Andrew Crislip (Viriginia Commonwealth University) presented his recent work on early Christian views of the emotions, which differ decisively from those of other cultures in the Late Antique world, forming part of a “construct of otherness” with which Christians distinguished themselves from outsiders. Crislip focused on the changing evaluations and norms with regard to passions and emotions as part of humanity, divinity and nature, found in Christian authors from the first to the fifth century CE. In particular, this talk highlighted the central role of “love” in Christian contexts, which was contrasted with negative “passions” (e.g. fear, sadness) that were associated with the creation of the corporeal or material aspects of the world and human being through demonic agents. As a crucial shift, Crislip pointed out that joy/happiness formed a central normative emotion for early Christians associated with life in this world, but was later portrayed rather as something that could only be achieved in afterlife. Second, painful emotions such as sadness and repentance became a virtue in late Antiquity, while sadness was regarded as something negative “corrupting” the soul by earlier Christian authors.

Tero Alstola and his colleagues from the Cluster of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires at the University of Helsinki presented their ongoing research concerned with the “Language Technological Analysis of Emotion Words in Akkadian”. The paper addressed the question to which extent the contextual analysis of emotion words through language technological tools can contribute to deepening our understanding of the meanings and nuances of emotion vocabulary found in ancient texts. Alstola presented their first findings resulting from the application of two different analysis tools, one tracing lexical semantic domains (i.e. the meanings of emotion words and their synonyms), the other tracing contextual semantic domains (i.e. the co-occurrence of emotion terms with other words relating to particular contexts of emotional narratives). Although the data produced by this approach needs to be complemented by and checked against contextual, close readings of individual texts or text passages, language technological analyses may also pick up certain patterns that may go unnoticed in traditional philological analysis.

The GRK 1876 was represented at the conference through Ulrike Steinert who gave a paper on “Perceptions of Selfhood in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Body, Emotions and Identity”. This talk gave an outline of Akkadian terms denoting self, body and “mind” and their links to thought and emotional processes. In particular, the paper analysed four basic emotions (joy, sorrow/grief, fear and anger), as they are represented in Akkadian expressions, textual narratives and discourses found in cuneiform texts from the second and first millennium BCE. The analysis highlighted the crucial importance of bodily symptoms (such as heartbeat, shuddering, sensations of heat etc.) and postures/gestures, as well as the role of body parts (especially internal organ terms) and conceptual metaphors in the verbal description and localisation of affective processes. Attention to the embodiment of emotion and its reflection in linguistic expressions allows us to trace both cross-culturally common and culture-specific patterns of emotional experiences. Moreover, the analysis of emotional narratives and scenarios in different text genres (from literary texts to medical prescriptions and letters) provides glimpses of the social evaluation of different emotions in Mesopotamia. While it is possible to differentiate distinct subcategories of emotions in cuneiform texts, emotional narratives often describe complex reactions, in which protagonists experience and express a mixture of different, yet related feelings (such as grief and fear, or sorrow, frustration and anger).

Helsinki University Main Library (inside), courtesy of the University.

The History of Emotions Symposium offered a wonderful platform for both controversial discussions and fruitful dialogue between the different disciplines involved, pointing out the enormous relevance of the topic and the need for further studies on the historicity and the culture-specific nature of emotions as embodied and social experiences.

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