CANCELLED: PSA Fringe Panel: Marking 10 Years of Global Discourse: The Politics of Emotions
UPDATE: Unfortunately this event has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
Join us to celebrate 10 years of Global Discourse with a panel discussion on the politics of emotions.
Venue
Political Studies Association International Conference, Edinburgh International Convention Centre (room TBC)
Date
12:20-13:10, Wednesday 8th April
Contact
Matthew Johnson, Editor, Global Discourse, m.johnson@lancaster.ac.uk
Overview: The first issue of Global Discourse was published in the immediate aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and coincided with the Election of a Coalition Government committed to austerity as a means of reshaping public finances. The decisions taken by Government 10 years ago have served to shape a political and social climate marled by emotion. Anger, fear and sadness have, to varying degrees, been implicated in the outcome of the Brexit referendum and the rise of Trump, on the one hand, and the persistence of Black Lives Matter and the impact of the Me Too movement, on the other. A philosophical tradition that stretches from Plato to Martha Nussbaum has urged us to keep negative emotions like anger and jealousy out of politics, and to instead nurture positive ones, like love and compassion. Yet, that must be confounding to minorities, the poor and other marginalized groups, whose political claims frequently originate in negative emotions and take the form of emotional expressions. Indeed, their marginalization and attendant suffering has been exacerbated by processes, such as medicalization, which prompt individuals to think of their anger, fear and other painful emotions as personal problems to be dealt with in the medical or some other ostensibly apolitical sphere. But not everyone believes negative emotions must be kept out of politics. Some feminists have long defended the political value of anger. And, more recently, such thinkers as Judith Butler and Deborah Gould have highlighted the politically empowering and constructive role that other negative emotions can play as well. Moreover, a series of methodological discussions on the importance of affect have brought the role of emotions in research into sharp focus. But whether these newer perspectives can survive the popular trend of blaming our contemporary political problems on passions like anger and fear remains to be seen. In this panel, we will examine both the place of emotions in politics and means of harnessing those emotions methodologically and politically. The dialogical format serves to illustrate the publishing model developed by the journal over the last decade.
Format: 45 minute lunchtime panel. Panel consisting of Dr Matthew Johnson, Global Discourse Editor and Senior Lecturer in Politics, Lancaster University, as Chair; Dr Dan Degerman, Guest Editor of 10:2-3: The Politics of Negative Emotions; Prof Matthew Flinders, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield and President, Political Studies Association.
Chair to introduce the panel and to outline the significance of discussion to the journal. Panellists will each have 5 minutes in which to summarise their Global Discourse contribution, followed by 5 minutes of discussion involving the other panel members and 5 minutes of questions from the floor.