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Source: The Birkbeck Pain ProjectCall for Papers Pain as Emotion; Emotion as Pain: Perspectives from Modern HistoryPublic conference, 26 October 2012The Birkbeck Pain Project and the Birkbeck Institute for the HumanitiesBirkbeck, University of LondonOrganised by Visiting Fellow to the Birkbeck Pain Project, Rob Boddice, Ph.D (Languages of Emotion Cluster, Freie Universität, Berlin)&#160;‘With the benefit of the past two centuries of scientific work and thought, can one define pain?’ The question was asked by the neuroscientist Edward R. Perl (Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 8, 2007). He concluded that ‘it seems reasonable to propose pain to be both a specific sensation and an emotion’. With that, the question of physiological pain opens up to those who study the history of emotions, which in turn gives way to new possibilities of understanding the historical and  cultural contingencies of physical pain. The statement also begs the question, if pain is in part emotion, of the extent to which emotion is in fact pain. Should the histories of anger, fear, anxiety, grief and compassion be studied as varieties of pain? In what ways have they been understood to have a physiological component? Likewise in histories in which physical pain plays a prominent part – the history of medicine notably – how far should our understanding of pain be influenced by the study of emotionologies that determine how the feeling of pain is expressed? How have emotional contexts affected the experience of pain?This one-day conference will approach these questions by focusing broadly on the dynamics of the emotional, cultural and medical history of pain in the modern period. The conference aims to foster discussion on the importance of emotion as it relates to physical pain and on emotions themselves as varieties of pain, among experts working on the history of science/medicine, the history of the body, and the history of emotions, with perspectives from a variety of national contexts. Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:Pain and emotion in the laboratoryEmotional pain and physiologyAesthetics/sensationMeasuring pain, clinically and/or in the vernacular, in historical contextImagining pain in others (humans/animals): compassion, sympathy, empathyEmotions as pain: grief, anxiety, fear, anger, etc.Expressions of the feeling(s) of painInfluence of emotions on bodily painPsychology and painPain and sentiment(ality)Turning off (emotional) pain: brutality, callousness, anaesthetics&#160;Please send abstracts of up to 500 words and a short CV by email to the Birkbeck Pain Project by May 1st, 2012. Questions may be directed to the Pain Project and/or to Rob Boddice.The conference will take place at The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. There is no fee to attend or register for the Workshop. But participants must register by October 1st, 2012 by emailing Julia Eisner.Funded by the Wellcome Trust