The socio-philosophical winter salon

All students and lecturers of the Faculty of Applied Social Studies(Opens in a new tab)  and interested parties from the university(Opens in a new tab)  and the public are cordially invited to this year's Winter Salon of the Faculty of Applied Social Studies.

Once a semester, the social-philosophical salon in the Faculty of Applied Social Studies brings together all disciplines of the social sciences, including philosophy, for a joint exchange and discussion on a topic of the faculty.

The following people will be guests on the topic"Feelings of Distinction and Emotional Dynamics":

• Prof. Dr. Hilge Landweer(Opens in a new tab)  (FU Berlin)
• Prof. Dr. Günter Burkart(Opens in a new tab)  (Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

In detail, this edition of the socio-philosophical salon will focus on the social production of feelings of contempt and envy, which we will look at from the different perspectives of our two renowned guests.

Feelings of distinction are a "special type of social feeling that can occur preferentially in connection with relationships of social inequality, power and domination" (Burkart 2007). Following Bourdieu, we see how specific emotional dispositions are habitualized alongside class tastes, including shame, envy and contempt.

However, the use of contempt and humiliation has also become socially acceptable on the political stage and the "dynamics of inferiority and superiority increasingly dominate the emotional culture in Western neoliberal societies." (Landweer 2025) Contempt is therefore tolerated in the vast majority of political contexts, including in the German public sphere, and is even cultivated in certain media (cf. ibid.).

In the salon, we will link the perspectives: What results from these analyses? What experiences and thoughts can we contribute?

Our guests and their publications are widely read in the seminar literature of the Social Work study program and we look forward to meeting them in person: Hilge Landweer has been researching theories of emotions in philosophy for a long time, while Günter Burkart researches and publishes as a cultural sociologist.