BU Research Blog

The study of emotions is multi-disciplinary. This is shown in the research profiles of two of the newly appointed professors at BU who bring international research and publishing profiles to two different faculties. Professor Ann Brooks is Professor of Sociology in HSS and Professor Candida Yates is Professor of Communication in FMC. Both academics have been involved in researching the emotions from different perspectives.

Ann has been involved in research on the emotions since 2010 when she became part of the Australia Research Council Grant funded Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions 2011-2017, with a grant of $24 million AUD spread across 5 universities. Ann remains an International Investigator with the ARC until 2017 and her projects are outlined here: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/researchers/ann-brooks.aspx. She has recently established a new research cluster on space, emotions and cities in conjunction with a colleague at the Centre: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/space,-cities-and-emotion.aspx.

She has published a number of books in the area of the emotions and social change including the following both with Routledge, the most recent being Emotions and Social Change (Routledge New York, 2014) (with David Lemmings).   Other books on the emotions include Emotions in Transmigration (Palgrave 2012) (with Ruth Simpson) and Gender Emotions and Labour Markets-Asian and Western Perspectives (Routledge 2013).

Ann is working with Candida and Professor Barry Richards of FMC in the development of new Masters programmes in the area of emotions among other areas.  Candida’s research applies a psychosocial approach to the study of emotion, media and popular culture and her current work focuses on the psycho-cultural dynamics of emotion and UK political culture. She is Director (with Caroline Bainbridge, University of Roehampton) of the AHRC Research Network: Media and the Inner World (www.miwnet.org), that brings together media professionals, clinicians and academics to explore the role of emotion in media and popular culture. Candida has developed that work through public engagement, research publications, consultancy and also as Editor of the Karnac Book Series: Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture that explores the emotionalisation of popular culture in different contexts, including TV, film, music and social networking, www.karnacbooks.com/SeriesDetail.asp?SID=114

Candida has published widely on the psycho-cultural dynamics of emotion, gender and popular culture, and her publications include Emotion: Psychosocial Perspectives (co-ed, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Psychoanalysis and Television (co-ed, Karnac Books, 2013); Media and the Inner World; Psycho-cultural Approaches to Emotion, Media and Popular Culture (co-ed, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity (in Press, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).