Dear Colleagues

A reminder of the next event in our 2008-09 seminar series on 'New Approaches
to the History of the Emotions'.

On Monday 23 February, Otniel Dror of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem will speak on

'The Adrenaline Century: 1900-2000'

Followed by refreshments.
6-8pm. Lock-keeper's Cottage. Queen Mary, Mile End Road.

The venue is marked as number 42 on the campus map:
http://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/campus/images/me_map.pdf

This seminar series is run by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of
the Emotions (http://www.qmul.ac.uk/emotions) and sponsored by the
Wellcome Trust.

With best wishes

Thomas Dixon and Rhodri Hayward




ABSTRACT:

Otniel Dror (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem),

The Adrenaline Century, 1900-2000




This is hallelujah day! De la Paz and I get clear evidence of
emotional production of adrenalin in cat.

                              Walter B. Cannon

                              Diary entry for Jan 16, 1911



This presentation studies the early history of adrenaline by drawing
on and connecting between the history of emotions and the history of
science.

On or about January 16, 1911, human character changed. This play of
words on Virginia Woolf's famous hyperbole, in which Woolf
encapsulated the radical changes in Western culture—"from Protestant
salvation in the next world to therapeutic self-realization in this
one"—captures the contemporaneous and no less significant shift from
the era of the "blush" to the era of "adrenaline" and of
"excitements."

      Adrenaline emerged during the early twentieth century at a most
opportune historical moment. It was the essence in which a materialist
culture invested its spiritual "energies." It was the liquid, which
encapsulated the emerging critiques of the "pleasure economy." And it
was an (evolutionarily) archaic source of energy in the modern body.
Adrenaline also embodied—at first only insidiously--the
anti-hedonistic pleasuresof engaging in masculine endeavors, like
sports, wars, and fear-seeking activities.

      In this presentation I will study four different dimensions of
adrenaline, as these emerged during the first several decades of the
twentieth century: 1-- the shift from blush to adrenaline; 2--
Cultures of Adrenaline; 3—The Three Body Problem: Head, Heart,
Adrenals; 4-- The Pleasure of Adrenaline Pain.

      My ultimate aim will be to exemplify the cultural and biological
potencies of adrenaline, and its progressive presence in—and
domination of--a wide spectrum of private and public realms.