Dr. Nur Yasemin Ural is a sociologist and works as a senior research fellow at the KollegForschungsgruppe “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” at the Univesität Leipzig. Before taking her current position, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the at the Collaborative Research Centre “Affective Societies” (DFG-SFB 1171) at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied sociology and political science in Turkey, France, Canada and Germany. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Paris with a dissertation on burial practices of Muslim minorities and politisation of religion in France and Germany. She has taught and published on questions of ethnic and religious minorities, secularity and Islam in Europe. Her current project examines the affectivity and materiality of the secular-religious divide from a historical and juridical perspective in Europe.

Research interests 

• Islam in Europe
• Anthropology of the Secular
• Affects and Emotions
• Historical Sociology

• Scheve, Christian v., Anna L. Berg, Meike Haken, and Nur Yasemin Ural, Affect and Emotion in Multi-Religious Secular Societies. London: Routledge, 2019.
• Bens, Jonas et al. The Politics of Affective Societies: An Interdisciplinary Essay.Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019.
• Ural, Nur Yasemin, “Recht auf Satire – Recht auf Beleidigung?“ In: Brokoff, Jürgen & Walter-Jochum, Robert, Hass/Literatur: Literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zu einer Theorie- und Diskursgeschichte, Bielefeld: Transkript, 2019: 397-416.
• Berg, Anna L. & Ural, Nur Yasemin “Freedom of Speech and Secular Affect in German Public Debates” In: Scheve, Christian v. et al. (eds.) Affect and Emotion in Multi-Religious Secular Societies. London: Routledge, 2019: 228-244.
• Ural, Nur Yasemin, and Berg, Anna L., “From Religious Emotions to Affects: Historical and Theoretical Reflections on Injury to Feeling, Self and Religion” Culture and Religion 20, no. 2, 2019: 207–23.
• Scheve, Christian v. & Ural, Nur Yasemin, “Affective Dynamics of Conflicts between Religious Practice and Secular Self-Understanding: Insights from the Male Circumcision and ‘Burkini’ Debates.” In: Roger Patulny et al. (eds.) Emotions in Late Modernity, London: Routledge, 2019: 297-310
• Walter-Jochum, Robert, Berg, Anna L. & Nur Yasemin Ural “Houellebecqs Soumission und „die Muslime“ im französischen und deutschen Diskurs über den Roman.” Tagungsband Diskurs – kontrastiv, 2016: 175–90.
• Ural, N. Y. “La place des défunts musulmans dans les cimetières français et allemands.” In Göle, Nilüfer & Yassine, Rachid, I. (eds.), European Public Islam, Paris: Halfa, 2015: 313–38.
• Ural, N. Y. “A Genealogy of Muslims Dying in France.” Sociology of Islam, 2, 1-2, 2014: 1–20.
• Ural, N. Y. “La Mémoire des morts : Les pratiques des choix funéraires des minorités originaires de Turquie en France et en Allemagne.” New Cultural Frontiers, no. 3, 2012: 69–90.