Like hardly any other period in the last 100 years, the past two years have been marked by the collective experience of a pandemic and its manifold consequences. The longer this „state of emergency“ lasts, the more clearly the high relevance of emotional aspects in social health crises, such as epidemics, becomes apparent. Close interdependencies between socio-cultural, political and economic processes at the collective level on the one hand, and psychological and somatic processes at the individual level on the other, have been and are being addressed by psychotherapy and psychology, by the sociology of health and emotion, by socialization and education research, and by the medical humanities. From a historical perspective, the history of mentality and emotion as well as the social history of medicine are active in this field of research. Multi- and transdisciplinary approaches appear to be indispensable for the specific question of the manifold connections between epidemics and emotion.
First and foremost, the images of massive collective „emotional outbursts“ of fear and despair that are triggered by the unexpected occurrence of a highly infectious and highly lethal epidemic come into mind. Such „epidemic panics“ have been known to historiography for a long time: such exceptional social conditions have repeatedly been recorded by those affected. Undoubtedly, so far not all of the historical sources of this kind are known to historical research, and the focus on the emotionality of the narratives also opens up new readings of known source material.
However, the connections between epidemic events and affectivity go far beyond: the mass deaths often associated with dreaded epidemics left a large number of people traumatized – due to their own illness and the risk of death as well as due to the loss of family members and friends, often associated with the agonizing experience of their own helplessness. Equally, however, mental defence mechanisms have occurred in the course of epidemics, consisting in the fact that thoughts related to this danger, are not „allowed“ individually-mentally and communicatively-socially: The result is the repression of the experience, even the denial of the threatening parts of reality, instead of a realistic confrontation with the danger. The unconsciously persisting sense of threat is then often reinterpreted and attributed to other causes, in particular personalized „culprits“, who can then also serve as objects for the projection of one's own negative affects. In this way, epidemics that are dangerous in themselves often give rise to additional negative consequences of social tensions.
The same applies to fundamentally appropriate measures taken to combat epidemic threats: they regularly entail considerable negative consequences at the level of everyday activities, especially in the economic sphere, as well as in the social context, especially when it comes to restricting social contacts in order to prevent infection. Such measures to prevent epidemics have therefore been the subject of highly controversial discussions, as the current situation but also the history of epidemics can show. Emotional aspects of epidemics are manifold. The experiences of pain and disgust associated with concrete symptoms of disease should also be mentioned, as well as the fact that there appears to be something like an „epidemiological“ or „immunological“ ethnocentrism, which, especially in the initial phases of an epidemic in regions or groups not yet directly affected, contributes to the fact that many people suppress the approaching danger and preventive measures are not taken in time. Similarly, more adequate forms of response to epidemics also have essentially emotion-related components; this applies to religious faith as well as to typically "modern" strategies for crisis intervention and resilience enhancement. Effective methods of emotional self-regulation were and are of particular importance for those people who – be it within personal relationships or due to their occupation – also take care of others in times of an epidemic, i.e. who perform care work – which underlines the importance of gender- and age-specific differentiations for relevant studies.
We welcome submissions of papers on the aspects of the conference topic outlined above, but also on related aspects.
The following topics are currently prioritized:
- Collectivized emotion – society, politics and economy in times of epidemic threat
- Individual experience of illness between traumatization and resilience
- Emotion and care
- Emotion and gender
In the context of a public keynote lecture Bettina Hitzer (Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin) will speak about „Pandemiegefühle. Nutzen und Grenzen einer emotionshistorischen Perspektive“.
Please send proposals for individual presentations with abstracts of approximately 2,000–4,000 characters (including spaces) by Dec. 31, 2021 to: Elisabeth.Dietrich@uibk.ac.at.
Conference languages: German and English.
The incoming proposals will be discussed by the organizing team together with the board and the cooperation partners and all speakers will be informed about acceptance or rejection by the end of January 2022.
The conference fee for all participants is 100,00 EUR and covers the costs for conference documents, guided tours as well as drinks and snacks during the coffee breaks. Students and persons with low income can apply for a reduced fee of 50,00 EUR.
Following the conference, speakers will be invited to submit a written version of their presentation for publication in a special issue of the journal „Virus. Beiträge zur Sozialgeschichte der Medizin“. The journal is peer-reviewed and published annually in print and open access.
Marcel Chahrour, Elisabeth Dietrich-Daum, Marina Hilber, Carlos Watzka
(Organizing Team).
Kontakt
Elisabeth Dietrich-Daum
Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften und Europäische Ethnologie
Universität Innsbruck
E-Mail: elisabeth.dietrich@uibk.ac.at
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