10th Anniversary of STR's Annual Postgraduate Conference: Current Themes in the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence

Session

Narratives, Affect, and Extremist Subjectivities

3B

29 May 2026, 14:30

4.07 (Williamson Building)

11. Imagined Extremist Communities: The Paradox of the Community-Driven Lone-Actor Terrorist

Inger Isabella Storm Sandboe (University of Oxford)

29/05/2026, 14:30

Paper

This article introduces the concept “imagined extremist communities,” a encapsulating the unique social landscape where right-wing lone actors, despite not being affiliated with organised groups, partake in a form of communal interaction. By examining the cases of Breivik, Harrison Tarrant, and Manshaus, this article illuminates how group-based and lone actors are more alike than what is...

20. Right After the Cut: Subjectivity and the Real in Iran’s 2025–2026 Uprising

Nazanin Shahbazi (University of Manchester)

29/05/2026, 14:45

Paper

This work explores how Iranians in the diaspora make sense of their encounter with the 2025–2026 uprising and the subsequent massacre via eight in‑depth interviews, analysed via Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis within a Lacanian psychoanalytic frame. It positions these narratives in the context of human‑rights documentation of nationwide protests met with live fire, mass arrests,...

34. Extremist narratives as mechanisms of emotion construction

Katrien Vanlerberghe (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

29/05/2026, 15:00

Paper

Terrorism research has increasingly recognised the importance of narratives in facilitating violence. Yet while narratives are often said to be persuasive because they engage affect, how they do so remains underexplored. This conceptual paper addresses that question by examining how narratives contribute to the emotional conditions under which extremist violence comes to feel both permissible...