Pluralism in Practice: Global Humanities at the Intersection of Geopolitics, Culture, and Public Dialogue
Conference.
At a time marked by geopolitical tensions, rising authoritarianism, and increasing pressures on freedom of expression, understanding how diverse perspectives are produced, negotiated, and constrained has become an urgent task. This two-day conference brings together scholars, practitioners, artists, and institutional actors to explore how global humanities can help us make sense of – and respond to – these challenges.
Rather than approaching pluralism as an abstract ideal, the conference focuses on how pluralism is practiced across disciplines, institutions, and cultural forms. It examines how knowledge, narratives, and creative expression are shaped by political realities, technological infrastructures, and institutional frameworks.
More about the conference
Day 1: Understanding the Global: Geopolitics, Method, and Humanities Research
The first day centres on academic perspectives and brings together leading scholars and early-career researchers to examine global challenges through multiple lenses. A keynote lecture sets the stage by reflecting on methodological approaches within global history, followed by a series of conversations and roundtables that engage with some of the most pressing issues of our time – including the relationship between nationalism, the far right, and digital technologies, as well as the shifting dynamics of contemporary geopolitics. The day concludes with contributions from early-career researchers, who reflect on how “the global” is conceptualised and studied across different disciplines and research practices.
Together, these discussions highlight the strength of the global humanities as a field capable of connecting perspectives, scales, and methods in order to better understand complex, interconnected phenomena.
Day 2: Shaping Dialogue Under Constraint: Culture, Institutions, and Public Life
The second day moves from academic analysis to the humanities at the intersection of culture, policy, and lived experience, focusing on how public dialogue is shaped under conditions of constraint. Set within UN City Copenhagen, the programme brings participants into a space where institutional, cultural, and political perspectives intersect.
The afternoon unfolds as a connected sequence of discussion, exhibition, and film, each offering a different entry point into the question of how voices are enabled, limited, and expressed. It begins with a moderated public debate that brings together actors from law, civil society, cultural funding, and artistic practice to explore how institutions and cultural practitioners navigate – and actively shape – public dialogue in contexts marked by conflict, censorship, migration, and political pressure.
This conversation is extended and deepened through the exhibition Under Constraint, which presents works by artists whose practices are shaped by conditions such as displacement, social norms, political repression, and institutional barriers. Here, the themes of the debate take on a visual and experiential dimension, showing how constraint not only restricts expression but can also generate new forms of creativity, resilience, and critical reflection.
The day concludes with a screening of Fox Under a Pink Moon, a documentary that follows a young Afghan artist navigating conflict, violence, and migration while continuing to create. The film brings an intimate, personal perspective to the themes explored throughout the day, foregrounding the lived realities behind broader discussions of cultural freedom, constraint, and agency.
Programme and registration
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