In recent years, the role of emotions has been radically reevaluated in the fields of literary and cultural studies and social and political sciences. Moving away from the dominant analytical focus on ideology, mind, and thought, many interdisciplinary studies now approach feeling, affect, and body as important constituents of society, culture, and art (e.g. Martha Nussbaum, Winfried Menninghaus, and Brian Massumi). In many of these studies, feeling (i.e. the act of experience and perception) is no longer seen as opposed or inferior to thinking, but rather as integral part of the individual and societal meaning making of the world. In the field of Arabic studies, the transformations related to the socalled "Arab Spring" have often been addressed and explained by analyzing emotional dispositions, structures of feeling, and affective turning points (e.g. Tarek El-Ariss, Stephan Milich, and Christian Junge). Likewise, the role of emotion has gained new importance in studies of classical Arabic literature and culture (e.g. Julia Bray, Thomas Bauer, and Lale Behzadi).

The AGYA summer school addresses young scholars (PhD students and postdocs) in the field of Arabic literary studies, both classic and modern, in a wide sense (including arts, history, philosophy etc.) to discuss approaches to emotion, affect, and body that are part of their research. This approach may be central for the whole project or only for parts of it; however, it should be central to the scholar’s academic intervention. It is part of the research projects of the Arab-German
Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA).

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
- the history and practices of particular emotions like love, grief, or wrath, or larger groups of emotions like social emotions;
- practices of the body in relation to feeling, e.g. watching movies, sportive activities, or political protests;
- forms und functions of affects, as experienced for instance in moments of break downs, euphoria, or vulnerability;
- theories and representations of emotion, affect, and the body in philosophy, politics, media, literature, and the arts;
- cultural and artistic expressions of feeling and the body, e.g. in particular art forms, genres, or artistic practices;
- the intersection of emotion and society, e.g. in national traumas, structures of feelings, emotional habitus, or forms of protest.

In the framework of the summer school, each young scholar will have the opportunity to present and discuss intensively his/her project in small working groups. In addition, all participants will discuss in plenary sessions theoretical approaches based on selected Arabic and English texts that will be provided by the organizers beforehand.

Participants will be requested to give a short presentation of (parts of) their current research project (20 min.) in English or Arabic; they are highly encouraged to choose the language they are less familiar with. In addition, they are supposed to prepare the English and Arabic texts distributed beforehand (ca. 50 pages in total) and participate actively in plenary discussions. Good knowledge of Arabic and English is required. Travel and accommodation expenses of invited participants will be fully covered by AGYA.