Objects and Emotions: Call for Contributions for a Special Issue of Archivi delle Emozioni
The open access journal Archivi delle Emozioni (www.archivi-emozioni.it) seeks contributions for a special issue on objects and emotions. The journal is devoted to the historical dimension emotions with a focus on antiquity, and is edited by Sotera Fornaro (Univ. of Campania, Editor in Chief), Stefano Briguglio (Univ. of Turin), Francesco Padovani (Univ. of Tübingen) and Thomas Kuhn-Treichel (Univ. of Heidelberg).
According to Thing Theory in its various interpretations (e.g. Brown 2003, 2004, 2015; Bodei 2011; Drügh 2018), including gendered and queer perspectives (Ahmed 2006), the emotional value of objects is expressed most clearly when they interact with human experience and connect different subjectivities, being altered by them while in turn altering the subject. Indeed, objects play a crucial role in the relationships between humans and non-humans, relationships that situate the human body and emotions within a broader network of agents and within a landscape of culturally coded interactions, experiences, and memories.
As vehicles and catalysts of emotions, objects occupy a central place in narratives closely tied to the perception of emotions – both individual and collective – and to the attempt to study and give voice to them. In the study of both Greek and Latin literature, emphasis has been placed on objects connected to the feelings of love and desire, also from gender-based perspectives (Harich-Schwarzbauer–Scheidegger-Laemmle 2022); however, many possibilities for exploration remain open in relation to other emotions activated through the relationship with things. Already in ancient literature, particular engagements with specific objects, as well as their absence, can alter an individual’s social status and thereby shape emotional responses, as exemplified by the case of Philoctetes’ bow in Sophocles’ play (Telò–Mueller 2018). In other cases, objects themselves become repositories of memories, stories, and emotions, contributing to what recent studies have termed the “biography of things” (Boschung et al. 2015). This theory has already been successfully applied to ancient Greek literature with regard to Odysseus’ bed and Achilles’ shield (Grethlein 2019; 2014), but its implications for the field of emotions remain to a large extent unexplored.
Literature, philosophy, visual arts, anthropology, and psychology address the study of the relationships between objects and emotions from multiple, mutually integrable perspectives. For instance, recent studies (Downes–Holloway–Randles 2018) focus on the relationship between materiality and emotions, seeking to provide an updated theoretical framework, or explore the anthropomorphic representation of objects in relation to humans (Wen Wan–Peng Chen 2021). There are objects that, by virtue of their function and design, reveal a close relationship with expressions of love, to the point of becoming true fetishes (Moran–O’Brien 2014; Fusillo 2012). There are also obsolete (‘desueti’) objects, bearers of memory, which lie at the center of a seminal book by Francesco Orlando (2015); there are objects that embody the materiality of emotions, such as the tombs of poets – places where memory acquires the materiality of an object – which connect emotions, reflection on the past, and literary theory (Goldschmidt–Graziosi 2018).
In this issue, Archivi delle Emozioni aims to explore the possible articulations of the relationship between objects and emotions across multiple fields of study. While the journal’s main focus remains on ancient Greek and Roman literature of all genres and epochs, contributions from modern literatures, anthropology, philosophy, and psychology are also welcomed.
Possible (but not exclusive) research topics include:
- Contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of the relationship between objects of memory and emotions applied to the journal’s relevant fields.
- Which emotions, both individual and collective, are evoked in relation to specific objects in literature?
- Emotions and objects over time: how do the emotions elicited by the same object change over time in the same individuals or social groups?
- The narrative functions of an object in relation to the emotions it evokes: How can emotions be narrated through objects?
- The study of gender-based representations of an object and the emotions it conveys.
- The agency of objects as vehicles of individual or collective emotions.
Please submit an abstract of no more than 1000 words to
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmed 2006: S. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham.
Bodei 2011: R. Bodei, La vita delle cose, Roma–Bari.
Boschung–Kreuz–Kienlin–Hahn 2015: D. Boschung – P.-A. Kreuz – T. Kienlin – H. Hahn (eds.), Biography of objects. Aspekte eines kulturhistorischen Konzepts, Paderborn.
Brown 2003: B. Brown, A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, Chicago.
Brown 2004: B. Brown, “Thing Theory.” In: B. Brown (ed.), Things, 1-22, Chicago.
Brown 2015: B. Brown, Other Things, Chicago.
Downes–Holloway–Randles 2018: S. Downes – S. Holloway – S. Randles (eds.), Feeling Things. Objects and Emotions through History, Emotions In History, Oxford.
Drügh 2018: H. Drügh, “Thing Theory.” In: S. Scholz – U. Vedder (eds.), Handbuch Literatur & Materielle Kultur, 108-116, Berlin/Boston.
Fusillo 2012: M. Fusillo, Feticci. Letteratura, cinema, arti visive, Bologna.
Golsdchmidt–Graziosi 2018: N. Goldschmidt – B. Graziosi (eds.), Tombs of the Ancient Poets. Between Literary Reception and Material Culture, Oxford.
Grethlein 2019: J. Grethlein, “Odysseus and his bed. From significant objects to thing theory in Homer.” Classical Quarterly 69/2: 467-482.
Grethlein 2014: J. Grethlein, “Das homerische Epos als Quelle, Überrest und Monument.” In: O. Dally – T. Hölscher – S. Muth – R. M. Schneider (eds.), Medien der Geschichte - Antikes Griechenland und Rom, 54-73, Berlin/Boston.
Harich-Schwarzbauer – Scheidegger-Laemmle 2022: H. Harich-Schwarzbauer – C. Scheidegger-Laemmle (eds.), Women and Objects in Antiquity, Trier.
Moran–O’Brien 2014: A. Moran – S. O’Brien (eds.), Love objects. Emotion, Design, and Material Culture, London.
Orlando 2015: F. Orlando, Gli oggetti desueti nelle immagini della letteratura. Rovine, reliquie, rarità, robaccia, luoghi inabitati e tesori nascosti, nuova ed. riveduta e ampliata, Torino.
Telò–Mueller 2016: M. Telò – M. Mueller (eds.), The Materialities of Greek Tragedy, London.
Wen Wan – Peng Chen 2021: E. Wen Wan – R. Peng Chen, “Anthropomorphism and object attachment.” Current Opinion in Psychology 39: 88-93.