The Philippa Maddern Prize commemorates Professor Philippa Maddern, a noted scholar of medieval English social history at The University of Western Australia who was the founding Director and a Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions until her death on 16 June 2014. The prize is awarded in honour of her to the author of the essay judged to be the best of those published in Emotions: History, Culture, Society each year.
The criteria for the prize and $500 AUD are:
- an intellectually challenging and persuasive argument
- persuasive application of emotion theories
- provides a new and innovative perspective in the field of the history of emotions
Volume 6 (2022) WINNER
Dr Katariina Parhi for her article: ‘Sensitive, Indifferent or Labile: Psychopathy and Emotions in Finnish Forensic Psychiatry, 1900s–1960s.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 6.1 (2022): 26-45.
With this outstanding, rigorously researched work, Parhi reveals the complex emotional and social negotiations behind what became diagnostic criteria for much of the twentieth century. Through the lens of historian Michael Hau’s ‘holistic gaze’, Parhi examines the history of psychopathy in Finland to provide significant insight into international differences in terminology, social and cultural engagement with mental disorders, especially regarding the judicial system. The article presents a fascinating insight into Finnish social life, and interpretation of ethical responsibility, arguing how holistic diagnosis served personal and social needs. Parhi uses diagnostic records to illuminate how and why theoretically constructed approaches to assessments emerged and examines the gradual disappearance of these heredity-based evaluations. This contributes new and compelling clinical, theoretical, and historical information to the field of emotions and psychology and demonstrates most clearly how approaches to affective states have historical lineage, bias and effect. The article is clearly defined, taking the reader from an understanding of how and why psychopathy was understood, diagnosed and altered over seven decades and offers a highly valuable resource for future research.
The Society for the History of Emotions warmly congratulates Katariina Parhi on her success.
Volume 5 (2021) WINNER
Professor Cecilia Sjöholm for her article: ‘The Thinking Fetus: Descartes at the Brink of Psychoanalysis.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 5.2 (2021): 234-258.
Prof Sjöholm has been awarded this prize based on its innovative methodology and bold intellectual thesis. The judges state that Sjöholm makes a substantial contribution to emotions scholarship by using a primary source driven approach to reinterpret Descartes’ role in shaping theories of emotional memory, passions, and the origins of emotions. The article is concisely written, well organised, and makes effective use of a large body of varied scholarship which it synthesizes to create a new kind of scholarly tension.
The Society for the History of Emotions warmly congratulates Cecilia Sjöholm on her success.
Volume 4 (2020) WINNER
Dr Diana Barnes for her article: ‘Animal-Human Compassion: Structures of Feeling in Dark Pastoral.’ Emotions: History, Culture, and Society 4.1 (2020): 183-208.
Dr Barnes has been awarded this prize based on her innovative application of emotion theories and their extension into topics of wide-ranging significance, such as interspecies compassion, ecological crises, and more-than-human emotional ties. Her use of ‘dark pastoral’ is particularly compelling, as is her decision to offset this concept against the 2020 NSW fires and the emotionally charged literary history of the kangaroo. This paper meets all of the award’s criteria, including presenting an intellectually challenging and persuasive argument and providing an innovative perspective in the field of the history of emotions.
The Society for the History of Emotions warmly congratulates Diana Barnes on her success.
Volume 3 (2019) WINNER
Dr Penelope Rossiter for her article: ‘The Municipal Pool in Australia: Emotional Geography and Affective Intensities.’ Emotions: History, Culture, and Society 3.2 (2019): 300-320.
The judging panel has awarded the Philippa Maddern Prize for 2019 to Dr Penelope Rossiter, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University, for her essay ‘The Municipal Pool in Australia: Emotional Geography and Affective Intensities’, published in EHCS 3.2. Based on interviews with users of the Lawson Olympic Pool in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, the essay explores ‘how to think and write about “affective intensities” that energise the emotional identifications with, and experiences of, place but that have no linear or necessary relation to particular emotions, no determinacy and no measure.’ In the words of one reader, ‘this is a beautifully written and engaging article, which will be of great value to scholars of affect and emotions in a range of disciplines who are interested in place, geography, affect theory, tears, grief and memory.’
The Society for the History of Emotions warmly congratulates Penny Rossiter on her success.
Volume 2 (2018) Winner
Erin Sullivan, for her article ‘The Role of the Arts in the History of Emotions: Aesthetic Experience and Emotion as Method.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society 2.1 (2018): 113–31.
Erin Sullivan’s essay argues for a stronger inclusion of artistic sources in the history of emotions. While recent and emerging histories of emotions have considerably opened up a broad source base to show how every kind of historical document – including mercantile, medical or legal – is suitable for exploring historical emotions and their social dynamics, the return to the arts as a source for understanding historical meanings of emotions is timely. With a robust field of literary scholars, art historians and scholars working in music and performance, a new dialogue between these scholars and those working with more documentary sources is now more possible than ever before.
Sullivan also reminds us in her essay that writing new histories of emotions is not carried out by emotionless scholars. As in other critical fields in the Humanities, e.g. on gender and race, the vantage points of scholars – including their own implicit values, attitudes and emotional perspectives – matter, and influence our choice of topics, methods and interpretations. A more explicit reflection of how we are placed in our own emotional economies, as expounded by Erin Sullivan, could open up new and exciting conversations in the field of historical emotions research.
Volume 1 (2017) Winner
Ben Gook, for his article ‘Ecstatic Melancholic: Ambivalence, Electronic Music and Social Change around the Fall of the Berlin Wall.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society 1.2 (2017): 11–37.
Highly Commended Essays
Each year the judging panel who are asked to award The Philippa Maddern Prize have the option of nominating one or two essays for High Commendation. The following volumes and authors have received this accolade.
Volume 6 (2022)
Dr Nicola J. C. Chanamuto for her essay on ‘Understanding the Hidden Emotional Labour of Migrant Women Doing Domestic Cleaning Work in England.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society 6, no.2 (2022): 314–33
The judges reported:
Engaging interviews for her qualitative research, Chanamuto explores social and emotional care provided by the often unseen or unacknowledged lives of migrant domestics. The approach provides a clear social and aeective lens, illuminating the gendered and complex nature of this professional yet inter-personal, inter-cultural work in intimate spaces. Again, building from the theoretical, the applied research presents highly persuasive and specific insights into forms of social and emotional support that inform the challenges and benefits for both cleaner and client. In particular, the research raises awareness of the aeective complexities that are experienced by migrant cleaners, and illuminates the need for an expanded examination of the domestic workforce.
Dr Elizabeth Mavroudi and Dr Cíntia Silva Huxter for their essay on: ‘Young People in the Greek, Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas: Emotional Attachments to Multiple Homelands.’ Emotions: History, Culture, Society 6, no.2 (2022): 237–56.
The judges reported:
Mavroudi and Huxter use a qualitative approach to provide a strong and focused research approach to diasporic belonging, attachment and identity. Their approach engages a clear, theoretically guided lens of daily or ‘mundane’ emotions in second and third generation young people across three diaspora to examine subtle connections and disconnections with the understanding of ‘homeland’. The argument is logically structured bringing the reader along through convincing theoretical understandings into applied context and then to persuasive discussion that offers new and constructive insights. The argument proposed and defended in this article has enduring relevance and contributes valuable knowledge for further research, noting the current world situation.
The Society warmly congratulates Nicola, Elizabeth, and Cintia for their success!