The January 2015 shooting at the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the subsequent attacks that took place in the Île-de-France region were staggeringly violent events. They sparked an enormous discussion among citizens and intellectuals from around Europe and beyond. By analyzing the effects the attacks have had in various spheres of social life, including the political, ideology, collective imaginaries, the media, and education, this collection of essays aims to serve as a contribution as well as a critical response to that discussion. The volume observes that the events being attributed to Charlie Hebdo go beyond sensationalist reports of the mainstream media, transcend the spatial confines of nation states, and lend themselves to an ever-expanding number of mutating discursive formations.

Alessandro Zagato is Research Fellow in the Egalitarianism Project at the University of Bergen, Department of Social Anthropology. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Maynooth University, and his research interests include autonomous political movements, aesthetics, and the state. He has been conducting long-term fieldwork among rural communities in the south of Mexico. His most recent publications address the relation between aesthetics and politics in the Zapatista movement.

Introduction: The Event of Charlie Hebdo - Imaginaries of Freedom and Control
Bjørn Enge Bertelsen and Alessandro Zagato

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  The Barbariat and Democratic Tolerance
  Knut Rio


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  Charlie Hebdo: The West and the Sacred
  Axel Rudi


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  The Thoughtcrimes of an Eight-Year-Old
  Maria Dyveke Styve


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  Imaginaries of Violence and Surrogates for Politics
  Alessandro Zagato


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  Where Were You, Charlie? Contesting Voices of Political Activism in the Wake of a Tragedy
  Mari Hanssen Korsbrekke


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  Moral, All-Too Moral: Satire, Morality, and Charlie Hebdo
  Jacob Hjortsberg


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  On Blasphemy: The Paradoxes of Protecting and Mocking God
  Theodoros Rakopoulos

Afterword: When a Joke is Not a Joke? The Paradox of Egalitarianism
Bruce Kapferer