The summer school wants to explore the role of affect, suggestive rhythms and contagion for the somatic mobilization of agents across a range of socio-cultural situations (e.g. protest events, dance halls, online forums, catastrophes), practises and processes (e.g. political mobilization and engagement, school bullying, youth loneliness, xenophobic/nationalist panics). In recent years an increasing interest in materiality, space, technology and embodiment has developed in the humanities and social sciences combined with an ?affective turn? (Clough, Massumi, Thrift, Seigworth and Gregg, Ahmed) to immaterial dimensions of these phenomena.

This has re-actualised early sociological theories about affective suggestion, contagion and imitation (e.g. Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde), which offer valuable insights to the analysis of a contemporary cultural landscape characterised by for instance viral/memetic phenomena, mediated/networked/rhythmically coordinated crowds, affective online communication and political modulation of citizen affects (Blackman, Borch, Gibbs, Sampson, Butler). During the summer school we wish to collectively explore the immaterial dimensions of the material social world and vice versa, discuss the potentialities, implications and risks of such analysis in an open interdisciplinary environment.

The event will attract PhD students from a range of academic fields (anthropology, geography, media, cultural studies, aesthetics, sociology, political science etc.) interested in, and doing research on, the affective turn, processes of imitation/suggestion/contagion, the rhythmically attuning mobilisation of bodies, and the im/material dimensions of culture and the social world.

Possible areas/topics:

• The affective dimensions of materiality, space, technology and things

• Aesthetics and affectivity, sensual design

• Mobilization within public and private spheres of action

• Viral communication, virality in the media, memes, social media

• The methodological challenges of analysing cultural materialities and immaterial processes

• Theoretical legacies to the ?affective turn? and new materialist orientations within the

  humanities and social sciences; early sociologies of contagion, suggestion and imitation

• Moral, media and financial panics

• Music culture, sound, dance and rhythm

• Industries of affect, affective consumption

• Tourism, black spot/dark tourism

• Artistic agency, idols and fandom

• Crowds, protest culture, social movements, (creative/eventful) activism, political events

• Depression, loneliness, bullying, affective exclusion

• Charity, empathy and sympathy

• Affect, emotion and power, war and affective modulation

• Xenophobia, nationalism, the strategic production of fear and hate

• Atmosphere, aura, prestige

• Sexuality, porn, love and care

• The affectivity of catastrophes

• Blasphemy, fanaticism and provocative politics