The Third FPR – UCLA Interdisciplinary Conference
March 30 – April 1, 2007
Friday – Sunday
at University of California, Los Angeles
Korn Hall

Seven Dimensions of Emotion:
Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives
on
Fear, Disgust, Love, Grief, Anger, Empathy, and Hope

This conference highlights the latest developments in emotion research and scholarship across the fields of neurobiology, psychology, history, philosophy, and anthropology. The program will focus on seven emotions – fear, disgust, love, grief, anger, empathy, and hope – that are deeply embedded in human biology, social life, and cultural environments. In keeping with the FPR’s mission, we will highlight in particular the areas of tension and points of interface between neurobiological and anthropological perspectives, or more simply, emotion from the perspective of the brain versus the perspective of culture. This conference should be of interests to both neuroscientists interested in what anthropology says about the influence and importance of culture to emotion theory, and to anthropologists interested in the neurobiological foundations of emotions and emotional processes. In addition, clinicians interested in multidisciplinary explorations of emotion and psychopathology will gain much from this conference.

Objectives

• Present current research on emotions across academic disciplines
• Engage a uniquely diverse group of leading neuroscientists clinicians and social science researchers to discuss and debate implications of recent advances
• Address cross-cutting questions
• Identify fertile areas for future collaborative research opportunities

Questions for Discussion

• How do some of the well-investigated neurophysiological processes underlying such emotions as fear, anger, and love interact with cultural context and meaning?
• How do the neural mechanisms underlying imitation and empathy interact with cultural interpretations and conventions, and what are the implications for clinicians treating patients with disorders of emotion and personality?
• How might behaviors involving extreme anger be differentially categorized as pathological versus normative across cultural contexts?
• How do local culture, historical events, and politics complicate neurobiologically grounded emotions such as hope and despair?

Anthropology

• Carole Browner, PhD, MPH, University of California, Los Angeles; FPR
• Daniel M. T. Fessler, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Helen E. Fisher, PhD, Rutgers University
• Alan Fiske, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Linda C. Garro, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Alexander Hinton, PhD, Rutgers University
• Douglas Hollan, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles; FPR
• Allen W. Johnson, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Robert Lemelson, PhD, FPR; University of California, Los Angeles
• Charles Lindholm, PhD, Boston University
• Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Carole Robarchek, MA, Wichita State University
• Clayton Robarchek, PhD, Wichita State University
• C. Jason Throop, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Unni Wikan, PhD, University of Oslo (Norway)
• Carol M. Worthman, PhD, Emory University

History/Linguistics/Philosophy/Sociology

• David S. Barnes, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
• Paul E. Griffiths, PhD, University of Queensland
• Zoltán Kövecses, PhD, DSc, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest)
• William M. Reddy, PhD, Duke University
• Barbara H. Rosenwein, PhD, Loyola University Chicago
• Thomas J. Scheff, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara

Neurobiology/Neurology

• Mark Barad, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• C. Sue Carter, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago
• Marie-Françoise Chesselet, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles; FPR
• Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• J. David Jentsch, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Emeran A. Mayer, MD, University of California, Los Angeles
• Paul M. Plotsky, PhD, Emory University School of Medicine

Psychiatry/Psychology/Family Social Science

• Marvin Karno, MD, University of California, Los Angeles; FPR
• J. David Kinzie, MD, Oregon Health and Science University
• Laurence J. Kirmayer, MD, McGill University
• Jaak Panksepp, PhD, Washington State University
• Robert S. Pynoos, MD, MPH, University of California, Los Angeles
• Adrian Raine, PhD, University of Southern California
• Paul C. Rosenblatt, PhD, University of Minnesota
• Laurence R. Tancredi, MD, JD, New York University School of Medicine

Submitted Papers by:

• Jerome Kagan, PhD, Harvard University
• Robert A. LeVine, PhD, Harvard University