01/07/2026 09:00 - 12:20

HALL: Pola - AT13

Contact: Kern C.

Chair: Kern C.

In conjunction with structural changes in public spheres, new forms of political debate are emerging, beyond traditional verbal formats. Performative practices—such as quasi-liturgical rituals, public choreographies, aesthetic interventions, sonic collages—are increasingly shaping political spheres. Alongside a politics of language, a politics of performance is gaining significance, in which power is negotiated through sublinguistic and affective practices. This shift is closely linked to the renewed presence of religious symbols and spiritual auras in public life. Even societies that understand themselves as secular are increasingly confronted with forms of postsecular political performativity.
Research on this phenomenon remains underdeveloped, with scientific debates largely focused on spoken discourse rather than artistic-aesthetic and performative dimensions and their dynamics of transcendence. The research network Postsecular Performances (DFG-funded, # 545972161) addresses this gap by investigating postsecular politico-performatives in public space, in a three-year research process. It examines how power relations are stabilized, transformed, disrupted through alterity-related performance, developing key elements of a grounded theory of postsecular performance. The network also reflects on religion-related academic work as a political-performative practice of own kind. It applies and discusses arts-based research as an approach to critically and creatively address the hierarchical asymmetries of academic work, discovering traces of a postsecular epistemologies.
This panel presents the network's aims, methods, and central findings. In its contributions, current examples of postsecular performances are discussed, in classic papers and arts-based presentations. Postsecular performances emerge as ambivalent spaces of imagination, capable of both enchanting and consolidating power relations while also generating disenchantment and transformative impulses.