Fear, worry, indignation, hate, contempt as well as trust, hope, compassion, empathy, or sympathy are regarded as both drivers of protest movements and a factor in processes of opinion formation, seem to guarantee the solidarity of political entities, and are responsible for crowd psychology phenomena like coups and revolutions or for the collapse of such movements into terror and horror. This book contributes to current debates surrounding the legitimacy of political emotions by taking a look at the history of art and literature: What iconographies do current politics of emotion draw on, to which long-since coded dramaturgies do social movements adhere, and what familiar narratives of mobilizing or containing political emotions are taken up?

Philipp Ekardt, Universität Konstanz; Frank Fehrenbach, Cornelia Zumbusch, Universität Hamburg.