{"id":837,"date":"2025-12-10T10:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/?p=837"},"modified":"2026-05-17T11:29:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:29:06","slug":"call-for-papers-words-and-violence-conference-at-oslo-met-26-28-may-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/call-for-papers-words-and-violence-conference-at-oslo-met-26-28-may-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Words and Violence conference at Oslo Met 26-28 May 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Authoritarianism and culture conference \u2013 Historical perspectives on culture wars, literature, and the vulnerability and resilience of democratic institutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This transdisciplinary conference examines the relation of writers and intellectuals to extreme politics, historically and today. It actually takes a certain type of intellectual firmness to bring democracy down, which is why \u201cpopulism\u201d finds its most dangerous forms when it is voiced by eloquent intellectuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Location<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OsloMet Pilestredet Campus P46 (Clara Holsts hus).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conference is open and free of charge, but you must preregister at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oslomet.no\/en\/about\/events\/authoritarianism-culture-conference\">https:\/\/www.oslomet.no\/en\/about\/events\/authoritarianism-culture-conference<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Full conference program<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuesday May 26th<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>10:15: Registration + coffee and tea<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10:30: Welcome by Kjetil A. Jakobsen (Professor at Nord university and project leader for \u201cWords and Violence\u201d)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10:45: Jeroen Dewulf (Queen Beatrix Professor, UC Berkeley): \u201cLiterature as Resistance. Dutch Clandestine Literature during the Nazi Occupation (1940-1945)\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>11:45: Jan Mervart (Head of the Department for the Study of Modern Czech Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Science): \u201cThe Written Word as a Weapon: Anti-Nazi Resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Formation of Modern Czech National Identity\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>12:30: Lunch break at Festsalen, Pilestredet 52, Studenthuset<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>13:00: Anika Seeman (Associate Professor, University of Bergen): &laquo;Transitional justice and the Quislings. Comparative perspectives on the legal and moral reckoning in Norway&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>13:45: P\u00e5l C. Halvorsen (Associate Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University): &laquo;Literary Treason: On the investigation of writers in the purges after WWII in Norway&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>14:30: Karine Le Bail (Research Fellow, CNRS): &laquo;Speaking Is Acting<strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0Voice, Radio, and Responsibility in the French Purge Trials&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>15:15: Coffee\/tea and fruit<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>15:30: Christine Lombez (Professor, D\u00e9partement Lettres Modernes, Nantes university): &laquo;Authoritarianism and Resistance in Translation: German Poetry, French Mediators, and Anthologies Under the German Occupation (1940\u20131944)&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>16:15: Narve Fuls\u00e5s (Professor, University of Troms\u00f8): &laquo;Nazi Literature for the Occupied: German Literature in Norwegian Translation , 1941-1945&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>17:00: Eirik Vassenden (Professor, University of Bergen): &laquo;The memeification of Knut Hamsun: Online right-wing appropriations of the Norwegian Nazi Nobel laureate&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>17:45: End of day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Wednesday May 27th<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u00a009:30: Kjetil A. Jakobsen (Professor, Nord university and project leader for \u201cWords and Violence\u201d): &laquo;Occupying art: Fascists, resistants and \u201cdegenerates\u201d in the Norwegian field of fine art 1940-45&raquo;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10:30: Johs. Hjellbrekke (Professor, University of Bergen): &laquo;Literary debutants in the Norwegian cultural elite: generations, oppositions, social origins and political position takings in the 1930s and 1940s&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>11:15: Lars Johnsen (National Library of Norway): \u201cProtagonists of Polarization: The Cognitive Tropes of &laquo;Culture Wars&raquo; in Interwar Fiction\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>12:00 Lunch break at Festsalen, Pilestredet 52, Studenthuset<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>13:00: Christopher Messelt (Associate Professor, \u00d8stfold University College): &laquo;Cancel culture? W.A.S.P. and David Irving in the Norwegian Public Sphere&raquo;\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>13:45: H\u00e5kon Larsen (Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University): \u201cCan the civil sphere grow too big? On civil sphere intrusion and aesthetic repair\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>14:30: Eve Gianoncelli (Postdoctoral Researcher, Nord university): \u201cMerging politics and religion. A genealogy of integralism\u201d\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>15:15: Break (Coffee\/tea and fruit)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>15:30: Tanja Ellingsen (Associate Professor, Nord university): &laquo;Trump 2.0, Julius Evola and the Return of Western Christianity&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>16:15: Janicke S. Kaasa (Associate Professor, University of Oslo): &laquo;Politics, religion, gender: Ideologies in the reception of Sigrid Undset\u2019s Return to the Future\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>17:00: Guri Hjeltnes (professor emerita, The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies): \u201cNorwegian Writers Swaying American Opinion. Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset as a Spearhead to Protect the Reputation of the Fighting Ally Norway, 1940-1942.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>17:30: End<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>19:30: Conference Dinner at Brasserie Blanche Josefines gate 23<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday May 28th<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>09:30: Ivana Perica (Postdoctoral Researcher at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin) and Mario Kikas (PhD Candidate, Nord university): &laquo;Politics, Literature and Tertium Datur: Yugoslavia, 1928\u20131968&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10:30: Fredrik Forrai \u00d8rskov (MSCA fellow at the University of Southern Denmark): \u201dThe Writers and the Totalitarians: Scandinavian-speaking professional writers\u2019 associations in the Nordic countries\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>11.15\u201315:00: Parallel sessions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lunch 12:15\u201313:00 at Festsalen, Pilestredet 52, Studenthuset<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>15:00\u201315:30: Plenary discussion \u2013 Summary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Parallel session 1 \u2013 Room: 311, Pilestredet 46<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jennifer Harvey (University of Lille): &laquo;The Static Field: Poetic Production in Times of War (1917\u20131989)&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lynn Dolman (UC Berkeley): \u201cA Person Without Politics Is Like a Sleepwalker\u201d: Care, Culture Wars, and Ethical Awakening in Grete Weil\u2019s Der Weg zur Grenze\/The Way to the Border<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Johannes Eske Andersen (Univerzity Karlovy, Prague): &laquo;The Ragnarok motif and subterranean beings in Dennis Gade Kofod\u2019s Nancy (2015)&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thomas Simenink (UC Berkeley): &laquo;A higher European world? Goethe, Zweig, Menasse&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fridtjof Willem Leemhuis (Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society): &laquo;Bound to be British \u2013 The Rebinding of Codex Sinaiticus at the British Museum in 1935&raquo;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Parallel session 2 \u2013 Room: 314, Pilestredet 46<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Camilo Soto Su\u00e1rez (Complutense University of Madrid): &laquo;Nazism, socialism and the contemporary historical revisionism. A study in political theory&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ksenia Fiaduta (Autonomous University of Barcelona): &laquo;Literature as Resistance: The Anti-totalitarian Potential of Narratives in Svetlana Alexievich\u2019s Poetics&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Richard Gramanich \u0160tromajer (Matej Bel University, Slovakia): &laquo;Losing the Thread of Reality in Hari Kunzru\u2019s Red Pill&raquo;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u0160imon Wikstr\u00f8m Sv\u011br\u00e1k (The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences): &laquo;The Psychic Grip of Authority: Effenberger on Transforming the Superego\u2019s Cathexis&raquo;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Censorship, freedom of speech and \u201ccancel culture\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We invite contributions dealing with censorship, freedom of speech and \u201ccancel culture\u201d, especially from a historical perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conference encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration between intellectual historians, scholars of literature, philosophers and social scientists concerning the dynamics of rhetoric and political thought in modern society.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bringing ideology back in means to study it in new ways, focusing not only on the lone professor or artist, but on the cognitive powers of tropes of speech and the spread of new rhetoric between various domains in society, the role of think tanks or various media platforms. Intellectuals exercise influence in specific technological and institutional contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conspiracy theory and media change<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We invite contributions on conspiracy theory and media change. Today there is much research on the social media, the internet, and the conspiracy mindset. But the interwar years were also an age when conspiracy theories influenced politics, in a rapidly changing media environment. The antisemitic fantasies of Hitlerism and the paranoia of Stalinism were not more anchored in reality than the fantasies of QAnon, and they were in some cases spread by intellectuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The controversies concerning the trustworthiness of professional journalism invites historical comparison. Thus, the contemporary concept of \u201cfake news\u201d is eerily similar to the way in which interwar right-wingers would deride journalism as \u201cL\u00fcgenpresse\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Transitory justice in the cultural domain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A final theme of the meeting is transitory justice in the cultural domain. Cultural autonomy is essential to liberal democracy; how did the transition from dictatorship and occupation to cultural autonomy and liberal democracy take place? What purges, trials, and tribunals among intellectuals occurred and did they help the transition from wartime occupation and dictatorship back to liberal democracy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please send abstracts by 1 February 2026 to <a href=\"mailto:kjetil.jakobsen@nord.no\">kjetil.jakobsen@nord.no<\/a> and <a href=\"mailto:pal.c.halvorsen@oslomet.no\">pal.c.halvorsen@oslomet.no<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early career scholar, who get their papers accepted, may be offered free board and lodging (breakfast and lunch). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authoritarianism and culture conference \u2013 Historical perspectives on culture wars, literature, and the vulnerability and resilience of democratic institutions This transdisciplinary conference examines the relation of writers and intellectuals to extreme politics, historically and today. It actually takes a certain type of intellectual firmness to bring democracy down, which is why \u201cpopulism\u201d finds its most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[19],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/words-and-violence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}