Public Lecture: Nur Yasemin Ural on ''Affect Theory and Materiality of Emotions: Secular Affects after Charlie Hebdo''
19 May 2022
5 p.m.
Seminargebäude, Room S 403
In the literature on “religious feelings”, there seems to be a consensus that religious feelings not only exist but are also felt in a certain way. In this session we will briefly outline how feelings/emotions/passions/affectations etc. and religiosity are historically connected. In doing so, we want to show that “religious feelings” are not just out there to be observed, but need to be understood as a product of their long history of Christian theorisation.
The remainder of the time will be devoted to introducing affect theory as a conceptual alternative to such apprehensions of religious feeling, which will allow us to analyse the emphasis on this "Muslim emotionality" as a relational, historical and material construction between Muslim and secular bodies. This step represents an attempt to systematically approach the Asadian notion of "secular sensibilities" and its role in constituting European identity through the example of the social mobilisation following the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in 2015.
