My interest in the expression of emotion and morality goes as far back as I can remember myself as a curious little girl trying to learn what right and wrong meant. Academically, this enthusiasm grew alongside my love for literature and narrative, and gained a new impetus during my Ph.D at Keele University (UK, 2008) when I had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of Darwinian thought. Since then, I have been considering the symbiosis between emotions and moralities more carefully, fuelled by an increasing desire to better understand behaviour, and inspired by regular collaborations with leading international institutions dedicated to these studies, including the Centre for the Co-Evolution of Biology and Culture (Durham University, UK), the Centre for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin, Germany), and the Graduate Centre at City University of New York (CUNY, USA).

I am currently appointed researcher at CETAPS, FCSH NOVA, Portugal, where I continue to research the relationship between morality and emotion. I organise a very successful annual international colloquium entitled “Morality and Emotion: (Un)Conscious Journey to Being”, which has already become a tradition at NOVA over the years, bringing together top researchers from different areas to discuss interdisciplinary views on emotion and morality. The unique opportunity this event provides, reuniting neurobiologists, philosophers, psychologists, historians, artists, anthropologists, computer scientists and engineers, marketing specialists, writers, among others, has, so far, resulted in three books I edited with Routledge and Palgrave MacMillan Morality and Emotion: (Un)conscious Journey to Being (2016), New Interdisciplinary Landscapes in Morality and Emotion (2018), and The Politics of Emotional Shockwaves (2021).

Email: saragsilva@fcsh.unl.pt