Such Emotion! What Emotion?

Sometimes we get emotional. And sometimes we see how other people get emotional. We are then filled with a feeling of surprise: such emotion! But this doesn’t explain much. The first experience of surprise, says the philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, wouldn’t be philosophical in the strict sense if it didn’t continue with several questions which are then raised. What should we understand by “emotion”? What kind of emotion? Why emotion and what causes it? How does emotion appear, develop, disappear, and reappear?

Georges Didi-Huberman, one of today’s leading thinkers, is internationally recognised for his work with images in the aesthetic ethical and political domains. As one of the speakers in the CCCB’s educational programme, Didi-Huberman will guide his audience through a route consisting of a series of representations in order to provide some answers to questions which emotions give rise to, and which he has discussed in depth in his book Pueblos en lágrimas, pueblos en armas (People in Tears, People in Arms, Shangrila, 2017). He will be accompanied by the historian, philosophy teacher, and head of the Department of Humanities at the Sadako School, Jordi Nomen, author of the highly-praised essay El nen filòsof (The Philosopher Child, Editorial Arpa, 2018).