Tag: history of emotions

CfP: Regarding the Pain of Others

Regarding the Pain of Others: What Emotions have to do in the History of Humanitarian Images.

A workshop organized by the Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities (University of Geneva) and the Geneva Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action (University of Geneva).


Taking the title of Susan Sontag’s seminal work as a starting point, this workshop aims at re-opening an old debate about the potentialities of exhibiting other’s suffering in order to promote a culture of peace, prevent war and/or resolve conflict. Sontag concluded in her book that images of atrocities had led the Global North to a form of
exhaustion, also called compassion fatigue, which has been criticized more recently as a myth. Yet, images remain today the main strategy of humanitarian organizations to raise awareness and funds.

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CfP: Regarding the Pain of Others

Originally posted to BMJ Blogs, by Bryan Mukandi.

Regarding the Pain of Others:

What emotions have to do in the History of Humanitarian Images?

(Geneva 4-5, 2019)

 

Taking the title of Susan Sontag’s seminal work as a starting point, this workshop aims at re-opening an old debate about the potentialities of exhibiting other’s suffering in order to promote a culture of peace, prevent war and/or resolve conflict. Sontag concluded in her book that images of atrocities had led the Global North to a form of exhaustion, also called compassion fatigue, which has been criticised more recently as a myth. Yet, images remain today the main strategy of humanitarian organisations to raise awareness and funds. Continue reading

CfP: “From Trauma to Protection: the 20th Century as the Children’s Century”

CALL FOR PAPERS – due 30 September 2017

Of all centuries, the twentieth is perhaps the one which most deserves to qualify as the ‘children’s century’ for the way in which the focus of social and political concern increasingly alighted on the figure of the child.

The period from the end of the 19th century witnessed a series of international developments affecting the discourses articulated around children’s rights to physical protection, health and well-being: from the multiplication of laws to protect them in the public and private spheres, to the rise of non-governmental organisations and associations to bring them relief from trauma, insecurity and maltreatment. At the same time, the twentieth century has gone hand-in-hand with increasing opportunities for children to experience such tragedies; and in both domestic settings (abuse or neglect) as well as wider geopolitical manifestations of violence (war and genocide) such anxieties have influenced the form and nature of the above responses.

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