Stockholm university

History Thesis Defence: Alvar Blomgren

Thesis defence

Date: Friday 11 November 2022

Time: 13.00 – 16.00

Location: Hörsal 8, Södra huset, plan 3 mellan E- och D-huset, Frescati.

Alvar Blomgren, Department of History, defends the thesis The Hurricane of Passion. Popular Politics and Emotion in Late Georgian England 1792–1812. OBS: change of location. The defence will take place in Auditorium 8 (Hörsal 8).

Alvar Blomgren's thesis casts new light on the struggle over reform in Britain following the French Revolution by studying how Georgians from across the social spectrum sought to enlist popular passions, either in defence of the established order – or to subvert and challenge it.

Inspired by the history of emotions, practice theory, and social movements theory it introduces the concept of ‘emotional tactics’, defined as the language, material objects, and practices used to encourage emotions for political purposes. Using a wide range of source material including controverted election cases, campaign material, newspapers, letters, ballads and prints, the dissertation analyses events of political mobilisation in three English cities: the rapidly industrialising textile town of Nottingham, the imperial capital of London, and Liverpool, Europe’s largest slave trading port. It asks what emotional tactics were used to encourage or discourage political mobilisation, and how they were adapted and deployed depending on local context.

Link to the dissertation

Opponent: Dr. Katrina Navickas.

Main supervisor: Karin Sennefelt.

Secondary supervisor: Magnus Linnarsson.

External supervisor: Margaret Hunt.

Alvar Blomgren
Alvar Blomgren. Foto: Anders Ståhlberg/Stockholms universitet

About PhD student Alvar Blomgren