Living With Feeling

In this episode, Thomas Dixon reads some extracts from his favourite text about angry emotions, the Roman philosopher Seneca's treatise on rage - De Ira. This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, and also a part of 'The Sound of Anger' podcast series. It was produced by Natalie Steed.

Dr Tim Read is a consultant psychiatrist who worked for 20 years at the Royal Free Hospital. He's also the author of Walking Shadows: Archetype and Psyche in Crisis and Growth, and a member of the Psychiatry and Spirituality working group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Here, he discusses 'archetypal crises' - moments which can combine aspects of spiritual awakening with psychotic episodes. How should individuals, families and psychiatrists deal with such moments, to guide them to positive outcomes. Check out also the videos from the London Philosophy Club event on spiritual experiences, which features Dr Read, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jc1rjmJG5s&list=PLx1iI_bKDuXHMjgT81NBpeQN-o-o6xoIC

Anthony Fidler discusses how western psychiatry failed to help him when he experienced occasional episodes of highly altered states (also called psychosis). Instead, he learned to navigate through these states of consciousness using mindfulness, connection practices, and other spiritual tools. Does western culture need to find a better relationship to extreme states of consciousness? Can such experiences even have a positive side, and be important stages of growth? To find out more about Anthony's work go here: http://www.easternpeace.co.uk/About.php

Geoff Mulgan is the CEO of NESTA, former director of the Number 10 policy unit, co-founder of Demos, co-founder of Action for Happiness, and a key figure in the British 'politics of well-being'. We discussed the history of this movement, its successes and failures, and what Britain's new 'minister for loneliness' can do to combat this problem. We also discussed why academics on the left tend to be so suspicious of the politics of well-being, what universities can do to support wellbeing in their local communities, and why Geoff is so coy about discussing that time he trained as a Buddhist monk.

Dr Guy Hayward is a sort of guerrilla agitator for Anglicanism, helping connect its cultural treasure to the majority of British people who no longer consider themselves Christian. A chorister and cabaret singer, he's also the founder of two initiatives - the British Pilgrimage Trust (co-founded with Will Parsons), which works to re-open and publicize ancient pilgrimage routes around the UK; and www.choralevensong.org, which helps to publicize free evensong services all around the UK. Both of these help to connect people to transcendent Christian practices, even if they don't believe in Christian dogma.

A podcast exploring the ideas and history of “normal’. How do you measure up? Where are you on the scale? And what about your children? One late Autumn night, on the third floor of Barts pathology museum, amongst the specimens pickled in their glass jars, the tight lacers liver and the bound Chinese foot, researchers from QMUL Centre for the History of Emotions gathered together an exhibition of living exhibits. Welcome to the Museum of the Normal. Producer: Natalie Steed Interviewees include: Sarah Chaney, Bonnie Evans and visitors to the Museum of the Normal Music: La valse du Tanvalacruchalo (Circus Marcus) Valse du tout au fond (Circus Marcus) Cotton (Poddington Bear) Silk (Poddington Bear) Thanks to Helen Stark, Sarah Chaney and Emma Sutton who created and curated the Museum of the Normal event. For the 2017 Being Human Festival, The Centre for the History of the Emotions is staging an event about Emotional Objects. We’ll be exploring the stuff of feeling. Talismans. Lost necklaces, found phot

"Death to all daft and emotional neurotypicals who love soap operas!" Paul and Elizabeth Wady both have an autism diagnosis. In his book, Guerilla Aspies, and show of the same name, Paul Wady offers a conversion course for neurotypicals, inviting them to join the "new normal". In this podcast, one of a series of three about the idea of "normal" they talk to Natalie Steed about neurotypicals and neurodivergents, Blade Runner, religion and the tyranny of the normal. This series of podcasts was inspired by The Museum of the Normal and event organised by QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions for the 2016 Being Human Festival. For the 2017 Being Human Festival, The Centre for the History of the Emotions is staging an event about Emotional Objects. We’ll be exploring the stuff of feeling. Talismans. Lost necklaces, found photos, fetishes and objects hidden under the floorboards. With talks, stalls and performances come and map your emotional London and bring your emotional talismans for our display.

One evening in November 2016, as part of the Being Human Festival, David Saunders invited seventy-three individuals into a small room on the third floor of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Once there, they disclosed their hopes, fears, and anxieties to a tape recorder. They were taking part in a restaging of a “revolutionary” therapeutic exercise called Psychic Driving. It was part of the Museum of the Normal, an event organised by QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions. In this podcast, produced by Natalie Steed, you can hear an interview with David Saunders about Psychic Driving and the increasingly alarming experiments of Dr Donald Ewan Cameron which attracted both interest and finance from the CIA. For the 2017 Being Human Festival, The Centre for the History of Emotions is staging an event about Emotional Objects. On 20th November. We’ll be exploring the stuff of feeling. Talismans. Lost necklaces, found photos, fetishes and objects hidden under the floorboards. With talks, stalls and performances co

This is the third and final session from the Flourishing University seminar at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, which explored wellbeing in university from an interdisciplinary perspective. This session explored wellbeing among PhDs, staff, and wider society. Speakers: Amber Davis: The Happy PhD - PhD student mental health and well-being Sally Rose, psychotherapist at Leeds University: Staff well-being in higher education Danny Angel-Payne, public health undergraduate at QMUL: Open Minds and student volunteering in the local community

This is the second session of the Flourishing University seminar at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, held at Queen Mary, University of London on Friday September 8. This session looked at courses and interventions for student wellbeing in psychology and the humanities. The speakers are: Dr Oliver Robinson, University of Greenwich psychology lecturer: The transitions of higher education Professor Nigel Tubbs, programme leader of Modern Liberal Arts at University of WInchester: Liberal arts and flourishing Karen Scott, senior lecturer in political science at University of Exeter, and Kieran Cutting, political science graduate: Teaching the good life Dr Siobhan Lynch, researcher in mindfulness at Southampton University: Mindfulness for students

This is the first session of the Flourishing University seminar at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, on Friday September 8. Speakers are: Jules Evans, research fellow at the Centre and lead of the Flourishing University project: An interdisciplinary approach to wellbeing in higher education (0 -22m) Rachel Piper, policy director at Student Minds: A whole-university approach to wellbeing co-created with students (22m- 35m) Daniel Eisenberg, director, Healthy Minds Network: What universities can measure in student well-being

This episode I interview Gareth Hughes, lead researcher in student well-being at the University of Derby, about what he's learnt over the last decades working on student learning and well-being. We discuss: - how Derby is introducing various psycho-education classes into all its undergraduate courses, each tailored to the needs of different course students. - how to help students in the first six weeks of university, when a majority of them show clinical levels of distress - why Gareth thinks students have worse levels of anxiety now than ever before in his career - whether Kathryn Ecclestone is right that 'therapeutic education' is itself making young people unwell - why well-being teams at university need to think beyond counselling, and consider their philosophy It's great stuff. If you want to find out more about Flourishing Universities, go to https://blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk/flourishing/

I interviewed Sir Anthony Seldon, new vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, and Dr Alan Martin, the head of psychology, about their plan to make it Europe's first 'positive university'. That includes introducing classes in Positive Psychology for every student and staff-member. You can read more on our blog: https://blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk/flourishing/2017/07/27/sir-anthony-seldon-universities-can-help-students-become-free-adults/

In the middle of QMUL’s Mile End campus lies the remnants of the Novo Cemetery (Beth Chaim) which was awarded Grade II listed status in April 2014. The gravestones are laid flat in the Sephardic tradition to symbolise the equality of all in death. The site is only part of a much larger cemetery, which was opened in 1733, that was redeveloped by QMUL during the 1970’s and 1980’s. What remains is part of an 1855 extension to the original site, with around 2000 graves of the original 9500. What Near the middle of the cemetery, there is a circular enclosure, surrounded by a low stone wall, which marks the place a number of graves were damaged during a bomb blast in the second world war. Clare Whistler has worked with a dancer and filmmaker to create a short film inspired by the cemetery with the dancer acting as a “tear” finding her way to the central, circular enclosure. Alongside this, she commissioned a new setting of part of George Herbert’s poem Praise (III) from the composer and singer Kerry Andrew. In

Inspired by the story she heard at a friend’s funeral, Clare Whistler and the artist Charlotte Still have been visiting tributary streams and sources of the Cuckmere River, East Sussex and recording their experiences and encounters in photographs, poems and maps. In this podcast Clare and Charlotte take me to one of their streams and Hetta Howes explains the associations between women and water in the medieval world, especially in the context of texts written by and for religious women. With music by Katherine Gillham. Produced by Natalie Steed

“I take things out of boxes, but need boxes to put them back in” A light dabble with a search engine on the subject of “tear bottles” will lead you to a world of assertions, often by online shops, about the historical use of “tear bottles” in the mourning rituals of Romans, Greeks and Victorians with stories of how tears were collected in small, stoppered, glass bottles as a sign of respect and grief. They’ve featured in opera designs and art installations and there are at least a couple of references to collected or collecting tears in the Bible including Psalm 56:8 where God is being addressed: Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? John Gill’s mid eighteenth century Exposition of Whole Bible unpicks this with another assertion about the “tear bottle” in the psalm being an allusion “to “lachrymatories”, or tear bottles, in which surviving relatives dropped their tears for their deceased friends, and buried them with their ashes, or in their urns;

Recorded as part of the "Museum of the Normal" event hosted by the "Living With Feeling" project of QMUL at the Barts Pathology Museum in November 2016. See: http://bit.ly/2jWQRdR

An interview about the history of emotions with Thomas Dixon, conducted in Melbourne in November 2016, edited and published originally by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.

Sad at Thirty - produced for QMUL Centre for the History of Emotions by Natalie Steed There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ’tis like the Distance On the look of Death – Emily Dickinson This podcast was commissioned by Tilli Tansey, Professor of the History of Modern Medical Sciences at QMUL, and Thomas Dixon, Director of the QMUL Centre for the History of Emotions. The piece responds to the Witness Seminar, organised by Tilli Tansey, to mark the 30th anniversary of the first publication about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in 1984. I interviewed Norman Rosenthal, the researcher who first wrote about the disorder as well as Jennifer Eastwood and Helen Hanson

This podcast features an interview with Lord Richard Layard, LSE economist, 'happiness tsar' and a driving force in the politics of wellbeing over the last decade; and with William Davies, senior lecturer at Goldsmith's, and author of The Happiness Industry. We discuss how academics can influence public policy, how governments, universities and companies can improve wellbeing, and whether there are aspects of the 'wellbeing movement' that are illiberal, reductive or creepy. For good background to this discussion, check out Oliver Burkeman's long-read article on the 'therapy wars' between Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and psychoanalysis:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/07/therapy-wars-revenge-of-freud-cognitive-behavioural-therapy Acronyms used in the discussion: IAPT: Improving Access for Psychological Therapies, an NHS talking therapy service which Layard helped introduce Will's book The Happiness Industry available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00WFYBGY8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=