Confronted by the rise of the ‘new right’ and the advent of ‘post-truth,’ existing scholarship on the
global and transnational populisms calls for a departure from rationalist, essentialist, and structuralfunctionalist
analyses. At this critical juncture, new scholarly terrain is called for to attend to myriad
‘irrational’ forces in politics e.g., emotional attachments to charismatic leaders, pre-colonial
nostalgia, and impossible aspirations.
In the first conference of our ERC project entitled “TAKHAYYUL: Imaginative Landscapes of Islamist
Politics Across Balkan-to-Bengal Complex” we bring together academic works that seek to offer a
fresh perspective that does not reproduce the irrational tropes yet is able to move beyond the
Eurocentric preoccupation with liberalism and secularism. While a growing consensus emerges on
the multiplicity of paths to modernity, the relationship of modernity with disenchantment and
secularization is being hotly debated. In the West, scholars note that disenchantment caused by the
retreat of religion in public life is replaced by the rise of ‘secular magic’- through charisma, myth, and
revelation. This conference seeks to contribute to the scholarship on contemporary forms of populist
politics through a focus on the mystical, charismatic, dreams, and the affective. We aim to develop a
discussion around various theoretical approaches on which to delineate the ways Islamist movements
forge imaginative landscapes.
In this conference, we ask: How can we expand our understanding of the formation of various
populist Islamist political milieus through a focus on longing, nostalgia, dreams, desire,
and other subjective, psychoanalytical, emotional, and aesthetic facets of everyday life? How
do imaginative and emotive references shape and steer the ideals of prosperity? If any, what
are the obstacles to those ideals in the formations of narratives around hope and a better
future?
The conference brings together a wide array of scholars working on Muslim societies and Islamist
movements across the world. It will stimulate a debate on the parallels and differences between
various Islamist movements and their claims on the past, present, and future in an interdisciplinary
forum bringing together scholars of sociology, political science, anthropology, social and legal
history, and cultural studies.
Please express your interest in the conference by filling out the linked form before the 30th of June