History study tracks emotional change
The History Discipline has been awarded its largest funding grant on record for a research project investigating mass emotions and their influence on historical change in Australia. Professor David Lemmings from the School of History and Politics has won approximately $3.5 million as part of a new national Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions. He will work with Dr Heather Kerr (Humanities), Professor Ann Brooks (Social Sciences) and Dr Claire Walker and Professor Lisa Hill (both from History and Politics) on the seven-year project. The Australian Research Council (ARC)has pledged almost $25 million for the Centre, which will be headquartered at the University of Western Australia, but involve chief investigators from other Australian and international universities, including Adelaide. Professor Lemmings is one of four Program Leaders under the grant. It is anticipated the research will have major implications for Australia's heritage, creative arts, social and cultural policy. Professor Lemmings's research will focus on mass emotions and historical change in medieval and early modern Europe. The team also hopes to involve South Australian creative industries in its projects. Five new postdoctoral researchers will be employed by the History Discipline over the course of the grant. "We will be looking at how public opinion, moral panic and religious fervour changed from 1100 to 1800 in Europe and how these emotions influenced life generally," Professor Lemmings said. "Some of the trends we will examine will be witch crazes in the 1300s, tulip mania in the 1600s and the South Sea bubble in England in the early 1700s when people reacted en masse to events which moved them emotionally." Part of the research will explore how news was communicated in Europe in medieval times and how public opinion developed. "The Church was enormously influential in those times," Professor Lemmings said. "The clergy would preach their message, whipping up fear and anxiety, which spread from town to town via merchants travelling by horse. "We will also be researching how people reacted to all forms of art, including drama and music, and how that influenced their emotions." Professor Lemmings said the ARC grant was the largest to date awarded to Humanities disciplines in Australian universities. "This is about thinking big and studying the influence of emotions on day-to-day life throughout history. It will show how cultural and social circumstances have shaped our reactions to events and wired us in different ways over the centuries." In June 2011, the University will host distinguished international experts at a collaborative symposium to discuss theories of emotional change in medieval and early modern Europe. Story by Candy Gibson
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