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Over the last three years, millions of refugees are both being welcomed and feared in European countries. Powerful stories at the core of the “emotional politics” brought on by the crisis show Europe at its best and worst. Adding to Europe’s multiple financial, economic, and institutional crises, the response to refugee crisis touches upon a deep layer of politics that has emerged to dominate political discourse, daily concerns, and social activism across European publics. While millions of citizens enthusiastically support refugees coming ashore, growing populist-right wing movements and parties thrive on the fear of cultural annihilation. As thousands are dying in the deserts and seas of European borderlands, death has returned as a maker of the body politic in its symbolic and actual form. This ambiguous mix of hope and misery not only requires new methodologies to understand its evolving dynamics; emotional politics are also poised to shape, and arguably essentially transform European politics far beyond the immediate future.