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Passionate Politics

This three-year research project aims to mark out space at UCL for interdisciplinary encounter around the theme of passions, affects and emotions in politics. Participating scholars work in political science, history, classical and modern literature and culture, philosophy, and history of art, inter alia. Between October 2014 and September 2017, the project develops three perspectives: First, a historical perspective that will focus on emotion and affect at key turning points in European history from 1789 to the present. Second, a conceptual perspective that will focus on particular political passions (such as love, grief, fear and anger) in critical and philosophical perspective. Third, a methodological perspective that will focus on the means by which passions are articulated, transmitted, and shared ('contagion' and 'mimicry').

Passionate Politics is hosted by the UCL European Institute, the UCL Centre for Transnational History and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). The project is generously funded by the UCL Centre for Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Projects (CHIRP).

Events organised under the Passionate Politics heading have included a symposium on Populism in Historical Perspective, a workshop on Politics and Emotions, a conference on methodologies of 'passion', and reading groups on texts linking politics and emotion.

Explore the Passionate Politics website