From affect as a cognitive phenomenon, through emotion as a motive for creativity, to empathy as a spur for community action and policy development, to the feeling that we belong in a given physical, social or cultural environment, affect is a significant but complex feature of our lived experience. Research on affect has progressed rapidly in recent years, owing to an expanding appreciation of its central role in guiding human attitudes, decision-making, and actions and owing also to developments in technology that have permitted more precise, moment-to-moment measures of affective response.

This conference will accordingly provide the kind of multidisciplinary forum that promises to be particularly productive in exploring the multifaceted nature of affect and of its influences on culture and lived experience. The goal of the conference is to engage academics and students from a broad range of disciplines in discussions and explorations of the social, ethical, political and cultural impact of affect and on the expression of emotion in individual experience and in the public realm.

We invite proposals for individual papers or for panels based on the themes of the conference. There will be a limited number of travel awards available for students whose proposals have been accepted for presentation at the conference.