International Political Theory Masterclass -- Ecological emotions: testimony, politics and theory Guest speaker: Professor Mihaela Mihai

Professor Mihaela Mihai's masterclass, Ecological emotions: testimony, politics and theory, explores how grief, anxiety, despair and other ecological emotions can be understood not simply as private or psychological responses to environmental crisis, but as politically significant ways of registering environmental loss and collective harm.

Drawing on recent work on ecological grief, political representation, resonance and ritual, the session will examine how testimony gives form to experiences of environmental devastation, how such emotions can become collectivised rather than privatised, and how they may sustain new forms of political imagination and action.

The masterclass will be framed around two recommended readings: one on the political work of representing ecological grief through memoir and testimony, and another on the ways rituals and shared practices can validate and mobilise ecological emotions in collective settings. Together, these texts invite students to think about the relationship between affect, temporality, political community, and environmental crisis

Students are required to read the following texts before coming to the talk:

• 2024 Representing Ecological Grief in Polity
• 2026 (with D Celermajer) Collectivising Resonance through Ritual: The Case of Ecological Emotions in the European Journal of Social Theory