The term affect used to refer to a much broader semantic field than the one it refers to today. As we learnt to analyse and express our emotions according to the psychoanalytic and post-structural viewpoints, we started forgetting the sophisticated code inherited from Aristotelian and Galenic literature, also impregnated of Platonic and Hermetic cosmology, which used to support the European early-modern psychological culture. Classical rhetoric and poetics, as well as every form of Christian spirituality emanate from the distinction between the two poles which still delimit the spectre of the psychic and physiological equilibrium: ethos and pathos. The meaning attributed to the terms affect and passion has shown to be contingent depending on where we place the boundaries separating the territory of the ethical from the attractive but perilous darkness which falls beyond. Bearing into account Spanish, Italian, English, French and German literary, musical and visual materials, as well as critical concepts such as power or performativity, La retórica de los afectos analyses some aspects of this distinction and contingency.
Lucía Díaz Marroquín. Having earned a Master of Arts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Doctorado cum laude at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Lucía Díaz Marroquín currently develops a post-doctoral project at the Warburg Institute (School of Advanced Study; University of London). This project –Performing the Temperaments–, based on her doctoral dissertation, consists of an analysis on the performative and affective implications of the Galenic theory. It is being developed in collaboration with the Institute of Musical Research (School of Advanced Study; University of London), thanks to the generous help awarded by the John Coffin Memorial Trust. She has recently published an annotated edition of Manuel (Patricio) Garcia’s Traité complet de l’art du chant the main work concerning the bel canto vocal and dramatic techniques (Manuel Garcia. Tratado completo del arte del canto. Kassel: Reichenberger, 2012) in collaboration with M. Villoria.
EuropaVox 