What are emotions? Can you die of a broken heart? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Why do we feel love and hate, anger and joy?

This special symposium will explore the concept of emotions with leading views from the worlds of science, history, art and philosophy.

Science is only now beginning to unravel the huge role emotions play in our lives:

_For example, death rates are up to 50 per cent higher in the six months after loss of a spouse, with the effect greater in men than in women. A second example shows that large crowds can be peaceful and serene rather than stressful as popularly assumed, as illustrated in a study of ‘the largest crowd on earth’ at the Ard Kumbh Mela Hindu festival in India, by the University of St Andrews. Heartfelt Emotions will explore this powerful field of human wellbeing, set against the increasing interest in emotion. _

Highlights include:
• Neil Pearson reads Modern Love by George Meredith. A dramatic performance of one of the world’s most poignant and emotional poems.
• Don’t go breaking my heart? Martin Cowie, Imperial College. Sweaty palms and a racing pulse can be symptomatic of fear or love. How do emotions have such a powerful role on the body and behaviour?
• Why Spock could not evolve. Dylan Evans, author of The Science of Sentiment. Western thinkers dismissed emotions as luxuries and barriers to progress. Modern thinking is debunking these views, with emerging consensus that emotion is vital to our evolution and intelligent action.
• An emotional history of the heart. Fay Bound Alberti, Univeristy of Lancaster. Only recently has the heart been relegated from emotional core and centre of being to a simple pump, yet it still remains a hugely powerful symbol and organ that we associate with our emotions. Find out how this intimate relationship has evolved.
• Collective Emotion – lessons from the largest crowd on earth. Clare Cassidy, University of St Andrews. The Ard Kumbh Mela is the largest gathering of people on the planet and large crowds are often associated with violence and angry emotion. Yet what can this peaceful gathering teach us?

Heartfelt Emotions is part of a comprehensive programme of public events at Wellcome Collection. Events range from open heart surgery through to discussions about treating teenagers with mental health problems and performances of the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’.