Sociology of Emotions

The Sociology of Emotions Research Network held its annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal from 2–5 September, 2009 as part of the 9th Conference of the European Sociological Association: “European Society or European Societies?”

We are pleased to announce that presenters came from a wide spectrum of countries ranging from Portugal, Spain, Finland, Holland, Sweden and Italy to Australia signifying that our network is diversifying and expanding its scope. We heard 64 presentations. These took place in 15 sessions covering a great variety of themes – moving from “Theorising Emotions” or “Emotions, Media and Spaces” through “States, Identities and Emotions” to “Emotions and Ethics”. The following members of the network organized and chaired sessions: Patrick Becker, Tova Benski, Charlotte Bloch, Anders Bruhn, Helena Flam, Mary Holmes, Stephanie-Alice Baker, Jochen Kleres, Helmut Kuzmics, Odd Lindberg, Katharina Scherke, Åsa Wettergren, and Mikko Salmela together with Juha Klemelä. We had high quality presentations, followed by very engaged discussions, indicative of a growing interest and caliber of sociological research into the field of emotional inquiry.

On the first day of the congress a meeting between the executive board and the network conveners was held. For the network members it is the most important to know that they should become ESA-members, since at least 25-due paying members are necessary by MAY 2011 for the network to survive. Moreover, the number of fee-paying members/members in good standing may determine (i) the space allocated to the network in the conference program as well as the (ii) grants for interim conferences.

During our time together in Lisbon a business meeting was held in which several decisions were made regarding the future of the Emotions Research Network: First, a new board was elected for 2009-2011 in which it was decided that Helena Flam would remain Convener, Helmut Kuzmics and Katharina Scherke would assume the roles of Vice Conveners and Stephanie-Alice Baker and Juha Klemelä would manage the website and occupy the positions of external representatives, along with Jochen Kleres who will remain in charge of the Google Mail and related interface activities.

Our most recent mid-term conference, featuring five very well attended sessions, was held within the IIS-congress in Budapest last year. This time it was decided that our next mid-term conference would be held in Graz, Austria towards the end of September 2010. Helmut Kuzmics and Katharina Scherke will be organising a conference in which members of the network can collaborate in a more intimate environment.

In our website we will continue making further announcements, discussing recent developments in the field and uploading conference proceedings and publications. Please contact Stephanie-Alice Baker: stephaniealicebaker@live.com and Juha Klemelä: jklemela@utu.fi with any information or upcoming news that you wish to have published on the website. In addition, the ESA-provided homepage URL: http://www.europeansociology.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=29 can be used.

In terms of publications, it was reported that the volume on emotions and theory edited by Debra Hopkins, Jochen Kleres, Helena Flam and Helmut Kuzmics just became released by Campus. The volume on emotions and bureaucracy, edited by Åsa Wettergren (Sociology, Karlstad – from January: Gothenburg) and Barbara Sieben (FU, Berlin) is to be taken under contract by Palgrave. The affirmative answer to the submitted proposal came within a record time of two days!!!

We are also pleased to announce that at the conference it was decided that collected volumes on (i) emotions and methods, (ii) emotions and internet, and (iii) emotions and friendship will also be pursued. In fact, Mary Holmes and Silvana Greco acting as editors already collected a number of contributions on emotions and friendship, and also decided on the table of contents. Mary is about to write/submit a book proposal to a publisher. For the other volumes, calls for contributions will be issued within the next 2 months.

Please feel free to contact any of us in matters of interest.

Network Coordinator,
Helena Flam (flam@sozio.uni-leipzig.de)