The politics of feeling in Brexit Britain (In Person)

You are invited to the launch of two books that use evidence from the Mass Observation Archive to explore the everyday responses to two transformative events in contemporary history: Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The politics of feeling in Brexit Britain uses first-hand accounts to explore how 'ordinary' people understood their own feelings about the EU referendum, and how they reacted to the feelings of others in the aftermath. Everyday Life in the Covid-19 Pandemic is a democratic history based on the 5,000 diaries collected by Mass Observation on 12 May 2020. Both books shed new light on what these events meant to people, how they felt, and how these feelings shaped public experiences and political possibilities.

The launch event will feature short talks from authors and reflections from guest speakers on the main arguments of each book and their implications for how we should understand the role of moods and feelings in British politics today.