Most of us see desires and emotions as private and personal. But if the election campaign and its aftermath has shown anything, it’s that emotion can not only be shared but become outright contagious under the right circumstances. Have we radically misunderstood the character of these effects? Is emotion necessarily subjective or could it be a collective experience that we all share in? Doesn’t that mean it has important consequences for social change?
In this new debate from the Institute of Art and Ideas, civil rights activist and “godmother of intersectional feminism” Kimberlé Crenshaw, journalist Juliet Jacques (author of Trans: A Memoir), and Royal Holloway academic Robert Eaglestone investigate the shared nature of emotion.
–David Maclean, IAI
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