The Sleep and the Rhythms of Life Network welcomed Brigitte Steger (Japanese Studies, Cambridge) and Megan Leitch (English Literature, Cardiff, and President of the International Arthurian Society British Branch) to present two papers. Abstracts:

Brigitte Steger (Associate Professor in Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge): "At night I lie in bed but cannot sleep" - Insomnia and loneliness in early Japanese literature

It is easy to think that the widespread problem of insomnia today is due to the stress of our hectic lives and the 24-hour nature of our societies, whereas in pre-industrial times people naturally went to bed when it got dark and got up with the sun after a sound night's sleep. However, Japanese literature of the Heian and Kamakura periods (9th to 14th century) depicts men and women of the nobility spending many hours awake at night-on duty at the palace, sitting on verandas admiring the moon, receiving visitors, taking turns to tell stories, playing music, travelling on pilgrimages and in a myriad of other settings. Besides such voluntary sleeplessness, the aristocratic men and women of the capital Heian (present-day Kyoto) suffered from insomnia. Complaints about sleeplessness due to uncomfortable beds, extremes of temperature, communal sleeping arrangements and houses that provided little protection against the weather and intruders, however, are all noticeable by their absence. The cause of their insomnia was overwhelmingly emotional. In this presentation I will demonstrate how it was the death of a parent, an emperor's illness, the absence of close friends and family and-above all-neglect by a lover that robbed people of their sleep, and how in poetry, novels and literary diaries, a reference to one's inability to sleep could also be employed metaphorically to express depth of feeling and aesthetic sophistication.

Megan Leitch (Reader in English Literature, Cardiff University): 'Sleeping it Off: Sleep, Wellbeing and the Emotions in Middle English Literature'

This paper explores the interrelations of sleep, wellbeing and the emotions in later medieval English literature. In the humoral theory of the body, in which health and well-being were determined by an individual's fluctuating economy of liquids with emotional attributes, sleep had a powerful role to play in generating balance by transforming food into the four humours during digestion. Thus, while sleep was important for physical health, sleep was also significant for mental health, offering relief from the 'unhealthful' humours of melancholy and choler. While medieval mentalities did not distinguish mental health from physical health in the same terms we do today, in pre-Cartesian conceptions of the interrelations of mind and body, holistic views of health meant that the implications of a bodily act such as sleep for emotional well-being were well recognised. Although this scientific paradigm was shared across medieval Europe, the literature of medieval England engages with it in distinctive ways.

As a form of sorrow-making and anger-management, sleep shapes subjectivities and judgements in English romances, cycle plays, and dream visions. Attending to the ways in which sleep parallels, as well as differs from, swooning as an expression of strong emotion in medieval English representations helps to deepen our understanding of the emotive scripts to which these two forms of unconsciousness contribute. Here, sleep both offers treatments and bodies forth truths about individuals that are culturally determined.

How could different types of music be used in therapy? Oxford medical graduate and working musician and DJ Michael Diamond discusses the features of different music genres types of music and their therapeutic potential. The project 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' is part of the 'Sleep and the Rhythms of Life' Network, a sequence of events organised by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

These four talks are taken from the 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' seminar:

The relationship between music and sleep is well represented by the long history of lullabies. The complementary relationship between music and wakefulness is perhaps less obvious but no less significant, and in some of its manifestations is closely associated with the other focus of this network: rhythm. This seminar will consider the relationship between electronic dance music and wakefulness, including the prolonged wakefulness that is characteristic of extended dance parties. The seminar will feature presentations representing perspectives from the psychology of music, machine aesthetics, and DJ practice, and will draw on principles of rhythmic entrainment and DJ set design, as well as the implications for rhythmic embodiment of different forms of machine aesthetics. 

Eric Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus  Fellow of Wadham College. He has published on various topics in the psychology of music, musical creativity, and the analysis of pop music. Recent projects include work on music, empathy and cultural understanding; and timing in the performance of C19th orchestral and chamber music. His books include Ways of Listening (OUP 2005), Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010), Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music (OUP 2017), Music and Consciousness 1 & 2 (OUP 2011, 2019), and Remixing Music Studies (Routledge 2021). He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Michael Diamond is a producer, DJ and musician based in Oxford, where he has recently completed a medical degree at Brasenose college. He regularly performs as a DJ in the UK and beyond. His latest record was the widely acclaimed jazz-influenced electronic album 'Third Culture'. He is currently resident DJ at one of the UK's longest-running electronic music clubnights 'Simple'. His academic interests lie in the intersection between music, neuropsychology and medicine including the musical and psychological mechanisms underpinning feelings of energy on the dancefloor and their potential healthcare applications.

Chair: Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature at University of Oxford.

How can electronic dance music tools and techniques be used to manipulate music for psychological ends, for example to enhance sleep? The project 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' is part of the 'Sleep and the Rhythms of Life' Network, a sequence of events organised by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

These four talks are taken from the 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' seminar:

The relationship between music and sleep is well represented by the long history of lullabies. The complementary relationship between music and wakefulness is perhaps less obvious but no less significant, and in some of its manifestations is closely associated with the other focus of this network: rhythm. This seminar will consider the relationship between electronic dance music and wakefulness, including the prolonged wakefulness that is characteristic of extended dance parties. The seminar will feature presentations representing perspectives from the psychology of music, machine aesthetics, and DJ practice, and will draw on principles of rhythmic entrainment and DJ set design, as well as the implications for rhythmic embodiment of different forms of machine aesthetics. 

Eric Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus  Fellow of Wadham College. He has published on various topics in the psychology of music, musical creativity, and the analysis of pop music. Recent projects include work on music, empathy and cultural understanding; and timing in the performance of C19th orchestral and chamber music. His books include Ways of Listening (OUP 2005), Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010), Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music (OUP 2017), Music and Consciousness 1 & 2 (OUP 2011, 2019), and Remixing Music Studies (Routledge 2021). He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Michael Diamond is a producer, DJ and musician based in Oxford, where he has recently completed a medical degree at Brasenose college. He regularly performs as a DJ in the UK and beyond. His latest record was the widely acclaimed jazz-influenced electronic album 'Third Culture'. He is currently resident DJ at one of the UK's longest-running electronic music clubnights 'Simple'. His academic interests lie in the intersection between music, neuropsychology and medicine including the musical and psychological mechanisms underpinning feelings of energy on the dancefloor and their potential healthcare applications.

Chair: Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature at University of Oxford.

How does a DJ use different music to engage listeners, from a neuropsychological perspective? Professor Eric Clarke (Emeritus Professor of Music at Oxford) and Michael Diamond (Oxford medical graduate and musician/DJ) discuss. The project 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' is part of the 'Sleep and the Rhythms of Life' Network, a sequence of events organised by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

These four talks are taken from the 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' seminar:

The relationship between music and sleep is well represented by the long history of lullabies. The complementary relationship between music and wakefulness is perhaps less obvious but no less significant, and in some of its manifestations is closely associated with the other focus of this network: rhythm. This seminar will consider the relationship between electronic dance music and wakefulness, including the prolonged wakefulness that is characteristic of extended dance parties. The seminar will feature presentations representing perspectives from the psychology of music, machine aesthetics, and DJ practice, and will draw on principles of rhythmic entrainment and DJ set design, as well as the implications for rhythmic embodiment of different forms of machine aesthetics. 

Eric Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus  Fellow of Wadham College. He has published on various topics in the psychology of music, musical creativity, and the analysis of pop music. Recent projects include work on music, empathy and cultural understanding; and timing in the performance of C19th orchestral and chamber music. His books include Ways of Listening (OUP 2005), Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010), Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music (OUP 2017), Music and Consciousness 1 & 2 (OUP 2011, 2019), and Remixing Music Studies (Routledge 2021). He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Michael Diamond is a producer, DJ and musician based in Oxford, where he has recently completed a medical degree at Brasenose college. He regularly performs as a DJ in the UK and beyond. His latest record was the widely acclaimed jazz-influenced electronic album 'Third Culture'. He is currently resident DJ at one of the UK's longest-running electronic music clubnights 'Simple'. His academic interests lie in the intersection between music, neuropsychology and medicine including the musical and psychological mechanisms underpinning feelings of energy on the dancefloor and their potential healthcare applications.

Chair: Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature at University of Oxford.

What's the relationship between music and the rhythms of our lives? Professor Sally Shuttleworth asks Professor Eric Clarke (Music at University of Oxford) and Michael Diamond (Oxford medical graduate and musician/DJ) to discuss. The project 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' is part of the 'Sleep and the Rhythms of Life' Network, a sequence of events organised by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

These four talks are taken from the 'Dance Music, Wakefulness and Embodied Rhythm' seminar:

The relationship between music and sleep is well represented by the long history of lullabies. The complementary relationship between music and wakefulness is perhaps less obvious but no less significant, and in some of its manifestations is closely associated with the other focus of this network: rhythm. This seminar will consider the relationship between electronic dance music and wakefulness, including the prolonged wakefulness that is characteristic of extended dance parties. The seminar will feature presentations representing perspectives from the psychology of music, machine aesthetics, and DJ practice, and will draw on principles of rhythmic entrainment and DJ set design, as well as the implications for rhythmic embodiment of different forms of machine aesthetics. 

Eric Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus  Fellow of Wadham College. He has published on various topics in the psychology of music, musical creativity, and the analysis of pop music. Recent projects include work on music, empathy and cultural understanding; and timing in the performance of C19th orchestral and chamber music. His books include Ways of Listening (OUP 2005), Music and Mind in Everyday Life (OUP 2010), Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music (OUP 2017), Music and Consciousness 1 & 2 (OUP 2011, 2019), and Remixing Music Studies (Routledge 2021). He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Michael Diamond is a producer, DJ and musician based in Oxford, where he has recently completed a medical degree at Brasenose college. He regularly performs as a DJ in the UK and beyond. His latest record was the widely acclaimed jazz-influenced electronic album 'Third Culture'. He is currently resident DJ at one of the UK's longest-running electronic music clubnights 'Simple'. His academic interests lie in the intersection between music, neuropsychology and medicine including the musical and psychological mechanisms underpinning feelings of energy on the dancefloor and their potential healthcare applications.

Chair: Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature at University of Oxford.

How can a neuroscientist and an architect help us to understand the world of sleep and the rhythms that govern our lives? A conversation between Professor Russell Foster, author of Lifetime (Penguin, 2022), and Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford, and world-renowned architect Ian Ritchie.