LIMMUD FSU Recharge Presenters 2022

What is Limmud? What are the Principles? Also, learn some of our History and more.

Vladislav Zemenkov Cultural historian and visiting lecturer

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Vladislav Zemenkov – cultural historian and visiting lecturer for the course “Science of Feelings: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Emotions” at the Free University (Moscow, Russia). Currently I am a graduate student at the Department of Polish, Russian and Lithuanian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Research interests: history of emotional life, sociology of feelings, literary and critical theory.

Sessions

Interactive Lecture-Game “Why Do We Need Sentiments?”

Today we are witnessing a global emotional explosion. People post their emojis on Facebook, politicians and economists talk about affective behavior, scientists study emotions in their laboratories and surveys. But what do we know about them?
The term “New Sentimentalism” is used to describe the current moment in relation to the epoch of literary sentimentalism in the XVIII century when “the emotional fever” spread over European royal courts and public institutions. People studied how to feel by reading and discussing various novels about love, suffering, abuse, and melancholy. As a result of such socioemotional education, the French Revolution happened.
Our session consists of two parts. In the first part (15 min) we will talk about the overlap between “new” and “old” sentimentalisms. We will identify the distinctions as well as the similarities between the two terms. We will also grasp the difference between emotions/affects/feelings and sentiments. Do all these words have the same meaning? And if they are not, what role does this difference play in our private/public life?
In the second “interactive” part (30 min) we will be training our imagination by creating short stories. In the XVIII century, numerous books (and novels in particular) overflooded the literary market in Europe. By introducing different social groups and the complexity of their relationships, writers produce the language that we partially use today. Do we speak this language fluently or maybe we use a completely new one today? In the second part, we address all these questions playfully.