Eva Illouz, in discussion with Susan Neiman
The Emotional Life of Populism
Eva Illouz’s new book argues that we can understand the paradoxes of populism by examining four emotions on which populist politics rest: fear, disgust, resentment, and love for one’s country. Taking present-day Israel as her primary example, she shows how this combination of emotions explains the rise and persistence of populism in many other countries as well.
Eva Illouz is Directrice d’Etudes at the EHESS and currently on sabbatical from the Hebrew University. She is also a visiting professor at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). Her research interests include sociology of culture, sociology of emotions, sociology of capitalism, and the effect of consumerism and mass media on emotional patterns. Illouz is the author of fifteen books translated into twenty-five languages. She received the EMET prize in Israel for lifetime achievement as well as the French Legion d’Honneur for her contribution to French culture. In addition to her scholarly work, she writes for Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Ha’aretz on literature, politics, social affairs, and various other subjects.
Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum. In Left is not Woke, her most recent book, she critically examines the phenomenon of wokeness and the philosophical assumptions that underlie it.