Queen Mary History of Emotions

The Museum Of The Normal

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 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.
‘Emotional Objects: From Lost Amulets to Found Photos’
20 November, 2-5pm and 6-9pm
Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0RN
Free to attend but advance booking essential at
https://beinghumanfestival.org/event/emotional-objects-from-lost-amulets-to-found-photos/

QMUL NORMAL: Guerilla Aspie

"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.
‘Emotional Objects: From Lost Amulets to Found Photos’
20 November, 2-5pm and 6-9pm
Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0RN
Free to attend but advance booking essential at https://beinghumanfestival.org/event/emotional-objects-from-lost-amulets-to-found-photos/

QMUL Psychic Driving interview with David Saunders

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 come and map your emotional London and bring your emotional talismans for our display.
‘Emotional Objects: From Lost Amulets to Found Photos’
20 November, 2-5pm and 6-9pm
Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0RN
Free to attend but advance booking essential at
beinghumanfestival.org/event/emotional-objects-from-lost-amulets-to-found-photos/

Flourishing University seminar (8/9/17): Session 3 - PhDs, staff, volunteering

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

Flourishing University seminar (8/9/17): Student courses and interventions

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

Flourishing University seminar (8/9/17): session 1

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

Gareth Hughes of Derby University on student learning and 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/

Sir Anthony Seldon on the positive university

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/

The Sound of Water: One Single Tear

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 this podcast Clare talks about making the film and we hear some of George Herbert’s poem, read by Peter Marinker, and the new piece of music.
Produced by Natalie Steed

The Sound of Water: Stream

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