Guilt & Shame
– an international conference
The main aims of the conference are to explore representations of shame and guilt in literature with special attention to the last twenty years of Danish/Nordic (auto)fictional narratives, and to frame and discuss shame and guilt within a historical-sociological and phenomenological context.
The ongoing individualization and political-cultural consensus that it is now the Competition State that constitutes and forms the social bonds, has sparked a growing number of narratives in literature, film, stand-up and reality-TV dealing with the concept of shame in various ways. These narratives can be regarded as different responses to the rigid demands of the Competition State (discipline, efficiency and uniformity), which creates constant feelings of shame and guilt, while at the same time different types of shamelessness develop. These (auto)narratives do, however, have goals of their own reaching beyond their role as responses to structural and sociological transformations.
The conference is structured in two blocks: one day with papers in Danish and one day with papers in English. While the Danish block primarily focuses on shame and guilt in a literary context, the English day will deal with the topic within historical-sociological and phenomenological contexts, too. On the second day a line-up of internationally acclaimed scholars will deliver their key-notes: Dan Zahavi (U. Copenhagen), Deborah Martinsen (Columbia University) and Thomas J. Scheff (UCLA).
Program
Download program and abstracts.
Thursday 30 October, 09.00-16.00:
Mediator: Mads Bunch
9.00-9.15: Introduction by Poul Behrendt and Gorm Larsen
9.15-10.00 Gorm Larsen: Frihed, angst og skam i præstationssamfundet
10.15-11.00 Louise Zeuthen: Skam og skyld som grænse og mulighedsrum – hos Bjørn Rasmussen og Kirsten Thorup
11.15-12.00 Erik Skyum-Nielsen: Skamløshed og skyld hos Bent Vinn Nielsen
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00-13.45 Nils Gunder Hansen: Skam i skamløshedens tid
14.00-15.00 Poul Behrendt: Skam som plotskaber i Min kamp
15.15-16.00: Plenum
Friday 31 October, 09.15-16.30:
Mediator: Louise Zeuthen
9.15-10.15 Dan Zahavi: Sociality and selfhood: the case of shame
Power point-presentation
10.30-11.30 Deborah Martinsen: Shame and Narrative Strategy in Twentieth-Century Literature
11.30-12-30 Lunch
12.30-13.30 Mads Bunch: Shame and Shamelessness in the works of Nielsen
Power point-presentation
13.45-14.45 Mons Bissenbakker: Not in Denmark: Shame as a national orientation evice in Danish debates on asyl policies
Paper forming backdrop for the presentation
15.00-16.00 Thomas J. Scheff on Skype: The Role of Shame: All the World’s a Stage
Manuscript and references
16.00-16.30: Plenum