(Not) teaching a spectacularly sticky subject under right-wing populism: evolution, affect, and curriculum politics in Turkey

The global surge of right-wing populisms has reshaped education by governing not only what can be taught but how it must be felt. In Turkey, evolution has become what I call a spectacularly sticky subject: a domain of knowledge whose hypervisibility and emotional charge expose the affective logic through which authoritarian populism governs knowledge. Spectacularly sticky subjects transform educational settings and curricular subjects into spectacles, generating both live and mediatized performances – from erotic creationist broadcasts to citizen-led science journalism. While grounded in educational contexts, this essay offers spectacular stickiness as a conceptual lens for analyzing how affect condenses around contested knowledge across diverse arenas, from vaccine hesitancy and climate denial to trans healthcare and battles over history. By conceptualizing evolution as a spectacularly sticky subject, the essay shows that affect is not ancillary to educational governance but a technology of power that disciplines what may be known, felt, and imagined.