Cultures of Transition: Presence, Absence, Memory

Today, culture is largely understood to be in transition. While national, regional, religious and local cultures had previously been described, in their various forms, as more or less stable entities, they are now increasingly perceived as determined by developments, influences, changes and conflicts related to secularisation, industrialisation, globalisation, migrations of various kinds, and many other politico-economic, cultural and religious forces. From this perspective, culture takes shape by processes in constant flux, as it negotiates between the presence of new conditions, values, ideas and beliefs on the one hand, and the absence of previously dominant ones on the other. Individual as well as group identities have come under these pressures of transition, and as a result the notion of memory has taken on increasingly central significance: individual and cultural memory provide connections and perform functions that are both indispensable and problematic in processes of identity formation, as manifested in literary, religious, philosophical and other conceptual and imaginative forms of expression. The ISRLC 2012 conference at the University of Copenhagen will address questions concerning religion, literature, the arts and theory within cultures in and of transition:

• In what ways do ‘experiences of presence’ and ‘experiences of absence’ carry and convey meaning in such cultures?
• What is the role of memory in such manifestations as literature, film, music, etc., as well as in ideas of invisible religious mediation?
• To what extent is existential meaning bound to experiences of ‘presence’ as opposed to ‘absence’?
• In what way does memory mediate between these experiences of ‘presence’ and ‘absence’?
• What types of hope and fear prompt visions of the future?
• To what extent are religion and the arts necessary for individual and collective identity in periods of transition and migration?

All general questions concerning the conference should be addressed to the conference organisers:

Nils Holger Petersen, [email protected]
Lars Sandbeck, [email protected]
Therese Bering Solten, [email protected]