The Politics of Affective Societies

Many recent academic and semi-academic voices claim that political deliberation has become exceedingly affective and hence destabilizing. Approaching the question from a wide range of angles, the authors of this interdisciplinary essay remain sceptical that it is really increased affectivity that constitutes the symptom of our times. They propose instead to reframe the debate by deploying the analytic of affective societies - claiming that affect and emotion are in fact present in all social interaction. What changes over time and place are not, then, the absence or presence of affect and emotions, but rather the modes and calibrations of affective and emotional registers. In this manner, this essay works towards a theory of affect and the political.

Jonas Bens (Dr. phil., Dipl.-Jur.) is research associate at DFG Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« at Freie Universität Berlin.
Aletta Diefenbach (M.A.) is a sociologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. She works on religion as a public force in the United States and in Germany.
Thomas John (M.A.) is an anthropologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses and media ethnography and visual anthropology. In his dissertation project he is concerned with a local art scene of independent documentary filmmakers in Mexico.
Antje Kahl (Dr. phil.) is a sociologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. She is currently heading the method lab at the CRC »Affective Societies« at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include methods and methodologies, sociology of knowledge, science research, medical sociology, sociology of the body, death and dying.
Hauke Lehmann (Dr. phil.) is a film scholar and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. His doctoral thesis as a film scholar is concerned with the poetics of affect of New Hollywood cinema. His research focuses on theories of cinematic affectivity and cinematic temporality.
Matthias Lüthjohann (M.A.) is a literary scholar and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. He is interested in the history of transcultural literature, the cultural sociology of critique and monolingualism's affective presence in late modernity.
Friederike Oberkrome (M.A.) is a theatre scholar and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. She is writing her doctoral thesis on the return of the messenger report in contemporary theatre, namely as a documentary form of representation in the context of flight and migration. Her research interests focus on theatre and spatiality, interrelations between theatre (studies) and art (history) and documentary aesthetics.
Hans Roth (M.A.) is a theatre scholar and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. His PhD project focuses on the political ambiguities of ridicule and solidarity in ethnic humor and postmigrant theatre. Other research interests include the affective economies of theatre and media, the theatricality of society and the theatre of Bertolt Brecht and its controversial legacy.
Gabriel Scheidecker (Dr. phil.) is an anthropologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. As social and cultural anthropologist his research focusses on emotion socialization in Madagascar and within the transcultural context of Vietnamese Berlin.
Gerhard Thonhauser (Dr. phil.) is a philosopher and currently Erwin Schrödinger Fellow of the Austrian Science Fund and associated with the CRC 1171 Affective Societies at Freie Universität Berlin. He holds a PhD in philosophy and M.A.s in philosophy and political science from the University of Vienna. His research focuses on social and political philosophy and theories of emotion from a phenomenological perspective.
Nur Yasemin Ural (Dr. phil.) is a sociologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied in Turkey, Germany, France and Canada. She obtained her PhD in Sociology at EHESS Paris. Her thesis focused on Muslim minorities and politisation of religion in France and Germany. She has taught on immigration, secularity and Islam in Europe.
Dina Wahba (M.A.) is a political scientist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. Dina is a women's rights activist who worked with several local, regional and international organizations such as International Rescue Committee (IRC), UN Women, the League of Arab States and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). She worked on a number of gender issues such as sexual and gender based violence, leadership, political participation and empowerment. Dina worked in several countries among them United Kingdom, South Sudan, Egypt and most recently Germany.
Robert Walter-Jochum (Dr. phil.) is a literary scholar and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. Within the project »Feelings of Religious Belonging and Rhetorics of Injury in Public and in Art« he does research in the field of hate speech in/and (contemporary) literature. He has also published on German and Austrian Literature, on autobiography, »literature and religion«, and »literature and emotions«.
M. Ragip Zik (M.A.) is a sociologist and works as a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre »Affective Societies« (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. Focusing on contemporary visual practices in political struggle, his project follows a critical approach to concepts of digitality, iconography, and affect. He has previously researched on artistic practices, collective memory, and resistance cultures. He currently serves as a board member at the International Sociological Association's Visual Sociology Research Committee.