Sympathies and Antipathies

Description

Papers will address these specific topics:
–    the co-presence of altruism and cruelty in human nature
–    the secret of sentimental tearjerkers from the eighteenth century to modern cinema
–    the heritage of eighteenth-century moral thought
–    literary representations of sympathy
–    the question of affect and professional neutrality in medicine and criminology
–    the place of empathy and altruism in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
–    the role of the media in humanitarian activity
–    the scientific basis for altruistic behaviour as seen in today’s most recent bio-medical research
–     self and other: tolerance, intolerance, othering, and discrimination
–    sympathy and politics; individual and collective evildoing; war, violence, genocide
–    the poetics and aesthetics of sympathy
–    society, sociability and the sympathetic bond
–    the debate on compassion fatigue, or when the sight of suffering becomes too familiar

Confirmed speakers:

Dr Fay Bound Alberti, History, Queen Mary
Dr Carolyn Burdett, English, Birkbeck
Dr Ildiko Csengei, English, Cambridge
Dr Thomas Dixon, History, Queen Mary
Prof Christopher Frith, Neuropsychology, UCL
Dr Loraine Gelsthorpe, Criminology, Cambridge
Dr Emma Mason, English, Warwick
Dr Ayesha Nathoo, Clare Hall, Cambridge
Prof Tilottama Rajan, English, Western Ontario
Prof Keith Tester, Sociology, Hull
Heather Tilley, English, Birkbeck
Dr Sylvana Tomaselli, History and Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge
Prof Arne Johan Vetlesen, Philosophy, Oslo
Dr Margot Waddell, Psychoanalyst, Inst. of Psychoanalysis and Tavistock Clinic
Dr Paul White, History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge and University Library

Round table panellists:

Peter De Bolla, English, Cambridge
Rhodri Hayward, History, Queen Mary
Jonathan Lamb, English, Vanderbilt
Dean Mobbs, Neuroscience, Cambridge
Marianne Noble, English, American University

Administrative contact: Sam Mather