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