This talk will be held in English.

This event is NOT in-house: Kunstmuseum Basel, Neubau, St. Alban-Graben 20, 4052 Basel

In her new book, sociologist Eva Illouz takes a look at our highly charged present from the perspective of the emotions that forge it. Envy and rage, jealousy and shame, disappointment and love are not just deeply embedded in the social configurations of Western modernity, they are also actively cultivated by its economics, politics, and cultural formations. They are psychologically relevant and politically effective – and at the same time highly ambivalent and explosive. Illouz explains these phenomena in terms of sociological analyses and by drawing on literary works. It is about the fragility of democracy, the hamster wheel of capitalism and the conflicts surrounding identity, as well as anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny.

In co-operation with Kunstmuseum Basel