Experiencing Agony

23/10/2024

Our "Writing the Self in Pain" conference begins tomorrow! Check out the full programme below!

https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/programme/

26/08/2024

Just a reminder that registration for our "Writing the Self in Pain" international conference is open until September 15! Come hear our fabulous speakers and meet fellow historical pain enthusiasts!

Writing the Self in Pain CONFERENCE Writing the Self in Pain – Historical Perspectives What? We are delighted to organize our international conference Writing the Self in Pain: Historical Perspectives. Read more about the conference below. When? 24–25 October 2024, University of Helsinki Registr...

09/05/2024

Violence, war, and suffering? Sounds very much up 'experiencing agony's street.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/bNdbvQQjHigdtQvD/

Call for papers is now open!

Passages from Ancient to Medieval and Early Modern Societies IX

Violence, War, and Suffering

Tampere, 13-15 August, 2025

The Passages conference series (since 2003) has focused on society and the history of everyday life in the premodern world. Our aim is to bring together scholars from diverse fields to study longer term historical continuities and changes between the classical, medieval, and early modern worlds.

The next conference focuses on the emotions and suffering associated with violence. The aim is to understand what kinds of emotional and affective responses and experiences violence and war cause in individuals, families, and other communities. While premodern violence as such has been studied from various viewpoints, we encourage perspectives considering comparisons between eras and cultures. Emotions, experiences, and everyday life provides novel viewpoints to approach these themes. The conference combines the latest research on emotions and experience with social and cultural historical approaches to the ancient, medieval, and early modern world.

We are particularly interested in what people feel in violent situations, and what the communal responses were to such experiences. We particularly welcome papers, which have a sensitive approach to social differences: gender, status, and ethnicity. We also welcome research on the processes of peace and reconstruction.

Confirmed keynote speakers and their tentative titles:

📜Professor Justine Firnhaber-Baker (St Andrews): Suffering the Unimaginable: Affective Responses to Warfare in an Age of Plague

📜Professor Marian Füssel (Göttingen): Feelings in a World on Fire: Doing Emotions during the Seven Years War

📜Professor Edith Hall (Durham): Women under Siege: the Trauma of the Chorus of Aeschylus’ “Seven against Thebes”

Read the full cfp and send your abstract by 13 Dec in https://events.tuni.fi/passages2025/call-for-papers/
!

Picture: Roman soldiers and civilians in a 18th-century drawing from column of Marcus Aurelius (Bellori, Giovanni Pietro & Bartoli, Pietro Santi, 1704)

12/02/2024

Feeling lonely on Valentine's day? Do join us to talk about the experiences of loneliness on this Wednesday.🙂

What?
Lecture by Professor Katie Barclay (University of Adelaide)

When?
14 February 2024 at 17:00–18:30

Where?
University of Helsinki, Main building room F3010 (Address: Fabianinkatu 33, 00170 Helsinki)

AND

You can participate online as well: https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/69859116771 .

What?
Loneliness is embodied, closely associated in modern western culture with health and wellbeing, or the need for physical comfort, such as that found in ma********on or casual s*x. What loneliness feels like can be explored cross-culturally, attending to bodily sensations and descriptions, as well as the mechanisms that might offer relief, from massage therapy to anti-depressants to company and community. This paper explores loneliness as a physical experience and how that has been represented in various cultures and periods. It uses this exploration as an opportunity to consider questions about the relationship between culture, the body, and emotion.

Professor Katie Barclay is Head of Historical and Classical Studies and Co-Director of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide. She writes widely on the history of emotions, gender, and family life.

19/10/2023

On the next Thursday, we shall begin the workshop!😍🤝

Here you can find a quick review on our programme for Thursday 26th and Friday 27th October.

We have people giving presentations and keynotes from four universities: University of Helsinki , Turun yliopisto - University of Turku , Tampere University and University of Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam .👏

Check out the programme in more details: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/making-sense-of-suffering

Let us know you're coming: https://www.facebook.com/events/988766685710985/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[]%7D

16/10/2023

In the next week, it's time for our workshop!🥳

The workshop will take place in Helsinki, at Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS) common room.🙌 The address is Fabianinkatu 24 and the room is located on the 3rd floor.

Check out our program: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/making-sense-of-suffering/

Let us know you're coming!➡️ https://www.facebook.com/events/988766685710985/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[]%7D

02/10/2023

Workshop coming up, are you coming?😎

The workshop will take place in Helsinki, at Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS) common room.🙌 The address is Fabianinkatu 24 and the room is located on the 3rd floor.

Check out our program: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/making-sense-of-suffering/

Let us know you're coming!➡️ https://www.facebook.com/events/988766685710985/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[]%7D

28/09/2023

⚡️HERE'S OUR TEAM!⚡️

Since the first September, we have finally got our whole team together with two new members.🤩 The project has been progressing since last autumn, but now when the new fall comes so did the project reach new level – and we are thrilled about it!

⚡️WHO ARE WE?⚡️

Here we are, from the left to the right as placed in the photo:

Soile Ylivuori, Project leader
Edna Huotari, Doctoral researcher
Annika Raapke, Postdoctoral researcher
Stefan Schröder, University researcher
Lotta Vuorio, Research coordinator

Combining the words "ELBOW" and "fellow" you get "FELBOW", and that is who we are. And the FELBOWs are ready to explore the Medical Electricity, Embodied Experiences, and Knowledge Construction in Europe and the Atlantic World (1740–1840)!😎

18/09/2023

💥OUR FIRST WORKSHOP COMING UP!

As an integral part of the project, we are launching a series of workshops to map out interdisciplinary approaches to the history of pain.

Our first workshop is called "Making Sense of Suffering – Historical Experiences of Pain" and it approaches pain through individual experiences and descriptions.

WHEN❓ 26–27 October 2023
WHERE❓ University of Helsinki, HCAS common room (Fabianinkatu 24, 3rd floor)
WHAT ELSE❓ The workshop is free to attend
ORGANIZERS❓ Experiencing Agony Project in collaboration with Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and Academy of Finland

Check out for more details and the workshop programme at our website: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/making-sense-of-suffering/

Let us know you're coming: https://www.facebook.com/events/988766685710985/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22create_dialog%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22permalink%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22edit_dialog%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

16/09/2023

Welcome to follow our research project Experiencing Agony – Pain and Embodiment in the British Atlantic World, 1600–1900!

This project explores the experiences of pain in the British Atlantic World in 17th–20th centuries.

Pain is born out of a combination of cultural, social, and individual factors. It has not had the same significance for all people in all times at all places. We are here to explore their varying experiences.

We are a four-member research team, based in University of Helsinki . Project leader Associate Professor Soile Ylivuori, senior researchers Dr Anu Korhonen and Dr Eva Johanna Holmberg, and Doctoral researcher Clarice Säävälä, MA.

This project is funded by the Academy of Finland ( Suomen Akatemia ) for 2022-2026.

Check out our website here! https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/