October School Delhi 2017
Encountering Emotions (In the Public Sphere)
Hosted by Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, Delhi
A public voicing of dissent or even a simple exercise of fundamental rights can lead to communities or collective bodies, getting hurt or the imagined national ethos getting damaged or coming under threat. What one wears, utters, eats, or the performativity of religion / regional identity / ethnicity / race / caste or gender can be the reason for injury to groups of people and therefore worthy of hate. Texts and images as they circulate in the public domain have an affect which as Sara Ahmed says ‘aligns subjects with collectives by attributing ‘others’ as the source of our feelings’. The October school will make the focus of its study the place of emotions in the public sphere and what they do as they circulate and shape social life.
Topics
Antagonism and Intolerance (in the public sphere)
Does conflict and dissent ruin the democratic public sphere or is it an essential component?
How does one differentiate between hate speech and freedom of speech?
Affect and Power (in the public sphere)
Use of affect for sanctioning and perpetuating intra and inter-community hierarchies
Narrative of Othering : Gender / Race / Caste / Religion (in the public sphere)
The role of affect in the strategy of othering for inciting collective hubris
Emotions on Web 2.0
Playing out affect in social media and gaming sites
Detailed Information