In my presentation of the Research Handbook on the Sociology of Emotions (Edgar Elgar, 2024) I will depart from a definition of institutions understood in a post-Weberian manner as a complex of organizational structures, featuring a (mostly hierarchical) division of labor, a set of tasks, a dynamic relationship with (equal and dependent, variously defined) outsiders as well as the foundational and new, legitimating myths, beliefs, rituals and (cultural) practices. In contrast to the normative-cognitivist neo-institutionalists and “institutional work” advocates, I will argue that institutions and more specifically their emergence, maintenance and destruction are intensely emotional and greatly affect the emotional rule regimes characterizing these institutions.

About the speaker:

Prof Emeritus Helena Flam has gained her Fil Kand in Lund, Sweden and her PhD at Columbia University, USA. As a professor of sociology she taught at the University of Leipzig, between 1993 and 2017. As prof emeritus she is still its affiliate. Professor Flam pioneered European research in the Sociology of Emotions. Recently, she called for connecting research on social movements, professions and civil societies. In her most recent publication, she shows how to bring together the study of emotions and institutions.

Among her major texts and (co-)edited volumes are "The Emotional ‘Man’" in two consecutive issues of IS (1990), States and Anti-Nuclear Movements (1994), Mosaic of Fear (1998), Emotions and Social Movements (2005), Methods of Exploring Emotions (2015), "Civil Society and Professions" in Professions & Professionalism (2019) and the Research Handbook on the Sociology of Emotions (2024).

Departmental Seminar: On Institutions and Emotional Regimes

Date: 28 April 2025

Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm

Venue: CJT-9.29

Speaker: Professor Helena Flam

Registration: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=98851