B007: Empathy, Narrative and Cultural Politics

Organizer(s)

• 

  Amina Yaqin

  SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom

Chair(s)

• 

  Amina Yaqin

  SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom

Paper Presenter(s)

• 

  Amina Yaqin

  SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom
• GP

  Geeta Patel

  University of Virginia, United States
• PM

  Peter Morey

  University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Session Abstract: Empathy and affect have proven rich seams for study in the humanities in recent years. Literary texts in particular aim to provoke empathic engagement among readers and often include models of empathy in terms of character interaction. At the same time, the real-world effects of empathy have been the subject of controversy among philosophers and cognitive scientists: thinkers such as Martha C. Nussbaum invests in the notion of pro-social action and transformative change resulting from exposure to ‘great literature’; whereas Paul Bloom and Fritz Breithaupt caution that empathy is a poor substitute for rational calculation and can lead to the entrenchment of existing biases.

This latter concern also characterises postcolonial engagements with empathy. What does it mean to empathise with another across cultural differences? Is there always an inequitable power dynamic at work in giving and receiving empathy? How do ethnicity, gender, class, and other factors impact on the sharing of the emotional experiences of literature? Our panel will look at texts from and of South Asia to consider how narratives trigger empathic responses around issues of nationalism, citizenship and sexuality. Topics include: how sympathy is deployed to generate empathy in a series of petitions in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century India; the pitfalls of securing readerly empathy for refugees in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West; and student reading experiences of Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy in a London classroom. In what ways do these stories complicate flows of emotional and social empathy?

Presentations:

• Cultural Translation and Empathy in a South Asian Literature Classroom in London
  

  Paper Presenter: Amina Yaqin – SOAS, University of London
• Found in Prison: The Poetics of Oceanic Sympathy
  

  Paper Presenter: Geeta Patel – University of Virginia
• ‘We are all migrants through time’: The Ethics of Empathy in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West
  

  Paper Presenter: Peter G. Morey – University of Birmingham