Emotions and the City: Urban Sociability in Britain and France, c. 1650- c. 1850

Emotions and the City: Urban Sociability in Britain and France, c. 1650- c. 1850

16-17 June 2022 - McGill University

International conference organized by the  GRHS within the framework of the H2020 DIGITENS project and the activities of the GIS Sociabilités.

Organized by Brian Cowan (McGill) et Pascal Bastien (UQAM)

Urban history and the history of emotions are now both well-established fields of inquiry, but the two fields have rarely engaged in dialogue with one another, particularly with regard to the pre-modern era. This conference invites urban historians and historians of emotion to consider the connections between urban and emotional experiences in Europe during the long eighteenth century (c. 1650- c. 1850). We propose that these connections can best be explored through the lens of the history of sociability, as we will explore the ways in which ideals and practices of sociability helped to shape the emotional aspects of urban life.

Programme:

Thursday 16 June:

9h00-9h30: Welcoming Remarks from Brian Cowan (McGill) and Valérie Capdeville (Sorbonne Paris-Nord)

9h30-10h30: Laughs and Tears in the Eighteenth-Century City 1

• Tymon Adamcsewski (Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy, Poland), “Passion, Pleasure and Immersion: Books and Reading in the City”
• Kate Davison (Sheffield U.), “Satire and the City: Laughing at Urban Life in Britain”

10h30-11h00:  Break

11h00-12h00: Laughs and Tears in the Eighteenth-Century City 2

• Emrys Jones (King’s College, London), “Hope and Disappointment in Eighteenth-Century City”
• Jakub Lipski (Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy, Poland), “Passions and/of Sociability in Daniel Defoe’s ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’ and George Cruickshank’s 1835 Set of Illustrations”

12h00-1h30: Lunch

1h30-2h30: Feelings on the Page

• Simon Macdonald (Queen Mary University of London), “Emotion and Urban Experience in the Diary of the Duchesse d’Elbeuf in Revolutionary Paris, 1788-1794”
• Véronique Léonard-Roques (U. Bretagne-Occidentale), « Révolution française et écriture des émotions paroxystiques dans quelques témoignages littéraires de contemporaines françaises et britanniques »

2:30-2:40: Break

2h40-3h40: Feeling the Streets, Feeling the Stage 1

• Katie Jarvis (University of Notre Dame), “Theatrical Markets: Parisian Spectators, Sociopolitical Communities, and the Madame Angot Plays of 1796 to 1803”
• Julie Hardwick (University of Texas-Austin), “The Material Culture of Precarity: Poverty, Parenting and Lyon Foundling Tokens in the Long Eighteenth Century”

3h40-4h00: Break

4h00-5h30: Feeling the Streets, Feeling the Stage 2

• Marion Amblard (U. Grenoble-Alpes), « The Late 18th-Century French Travellers Emotional Response to Scottish Cities and Urban Life in Scotland »
• Meghan Roberts (Bowdoin College), « Le Cat and Anatomy Courses in Eighteenth-Century France »
• Fiona Ritchie (McGill), “Emotions on Tour: the Eighteenth-Century Actress in the British Provinces”

Friday 17 June:

9h00-11h00: Fear in the City 1

• Jeremy Fradkin (McGill), “The Emotional Politics of Exile in Early Modern London”
• Andrea McKenzie (U. of Victoria), “The French Connection; or, the Wrath of Louis XIV: the Emotional History of Secret Anglo-French Diplomacy during the Popish Plot, 1678-1681”

10h00-10h10: Break

10h10-11h10: Fear in the City 2

• Sabrina Juillet Garzon (Sorbonne Paris-Nord), « Diseases and Popular Emotions in Edinburgh during the Long Eighteenth Century: a Driving Force in the Improvements of the City? »
• Simon Devereaux (U. of Victoria), “The Emotional Lives of Condemned Prisoners in London, 1823-1838”

11h10-11h30: Break

11h30-12h30: Rob Boddice (Freie Universität Berlin): “The Biocultural City: Sense, Emotion and the Problem of Experience”

12h00-2h00: Lunch

2h00-3h00: All Together: Urban Solidarities and Identities 1

• Stéphane Jettot (Paris-Sorbonne), « Sociability, Emotions and Ancestry in London and Paris (1700-1800) »
• Valérie Capdeville (Paris 13), “Clublife, Urban Sociability and the Pursuit of Happiness in British America, 1700-1770”

3:00-3:10: Break

3h10-4h10: All Together: Urban Solidarities and Identities 2

• Elaine Chalus (Liverpool), “The Warmth of Feeling Excited by a Popular Election: Sociability, Emotion and the Town in English Contested Elections, c. 1775-1830”
• Ian Beattie (Independant Scholar), « Discourses About the Workhouse Among the Working Poor: Case Studies from Early 19th-Century Manchester »

4:10-4:20: Break

4h20-5h20: Roundtables conclusions: Valérie Capdeville (Sorbonne Paris-Nord); Brian Cowan (McGill); Rob Boddice (Freie Universität Berlin)

Programme and contact form on GRHS website (Groupe de Recherche en Histoire des Sociabilités)

Programme and contact form on GRHS website (Groupe de Recherche en Histoire des Sociabilités)