Narrating Global Conflict

In celebration of the launch of HUM:Global in 2024, we are organizing a one-day conference.

Painting by artist Trine Kandborg entitled “Nationer af tavshed”.

At a time when the world is ablaze with perilous conflagration, entrenched geopolitical struggles, and atrocious warfare, scholars, journalists, artists, activists, and civilians – whether up close or from afar – are trying to make sense of the senseless.

Scholars might try to uncover the roots or dynamics of a conflict, while journalists cover the events on the ground and the human experiences of the same. Artists articulate the conflicted emotions or utter hopelessness of warfare, while activists may mobilize to shine a light on the oppressed, the suffering or the persecuted, or to instil moral indignation and hope amidst carnage. And civilians, citizens, human beings – we absorb, we consume, we engage, we share, we debate, we reject, we ignore, we act. All of us partake in globally interwoven narrations of conflict.

This public conference seeks to explore and connect how different professions narrate conflicts across time and space. It takes artistic expressions, personal accounts, and academic and professional analysis equally seriously. We do this both to unpack their innate qualities as sensemaking practices and how they blend across a digitized, globalized interactive space to create sustained tropes of conflict and resolution in our time. Our aim, therefore, is to sustain a dialogue between perspectives on the global conflict at a historical moment when professional compartmentalization, ideological schisms and political naming and shaming risk tearing the critical, free, frank and interrogative exchange that universities are meant to lift apart.

We are grateful to our collaborators Asian Dynamics Initiative, Centre for Culture and the Mind, Nordic Humanities Center, UN City and Ukraine House in Denmark for their generous support of this conference.

Registration

Narrating Global Conflict is directed towards scholars and students at the University of Copenhagen and the wider interested audience. As such, all of the parts are open to the public. Due to space limitations, however, registration is required.

NB: A photographer will be present. The resulting images will be used by the University of Copenhagen for promotional and marketing purposes.

Preliminary programme

Part 1: Multisalen

University of Copenhagen South Campus, Room 21.0.54 (Multisalen)

09:00-09:10	Welcome to Narrating Global Conflict
09:10-09:50	Presentation of HUM:Global and Seed Money Projects Haakon A. Ikonomou, Assistant Professor and Director HUM:Global
10:00-10:20	Presentation of Nordic Humanities Center forthcoming research project by Rasmus Glenthøj, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Language, SDU, Mette Sandbye, Professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH, Kristian Handberg, Postdoc, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH.
10:20-10:30	Audience Q&A
10:30-10:45	Break
10:45-11:10	Archiving the Future: Re-Collections of Syria in War and Peace + Q&A Presentation of a research project by Andreas Bandak, Associate Professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, UCPH
11:10-11:35	Nightmares of trauma-affected refugees + Q&A Presentation of PhD project by Ida S. Poschmann, Department of Health and Medical Sciences and Center for Culture and the Mind, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, UCPH
11:35-12:00	The Image as Evidence and Imaginary World-making + Q&A Presentation of research thinking with Rabih Mroue’s, and The Center for Spatial Technologies’ appropriation of images of war by Solveig Gade, Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

Part 2: Multisalen

University of Copenhagen South Campus, Room 21.0.54 (Multisalen)

13:00-14:30	Sensemaking and Narration of Global Conflicts
13:00-14:10	Roundtable discussion moderated by Fanar Haddad, Assistant Professor Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, UCPH. Participants: Jan Pêt Khorto, Independent poet, writer and public speaker Katja Kjar-Levin, Humanitarian and Peace Building Lead at Oxfam DK Hugh Macleod Communications Lead at IRTC, lawyer and journalist
14:10-14:30	Audience Q&A
14:30-14:45	Break
14:45-16:00	Keynote Lecture – The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Asian Dynamics Initiative Keynote lecture by Shehan Karunatilaka, renowned author and winner of The Booker Prize 2022, with introduction & comments by critically acclaimed author Liz Jensen, followed by audience Q&A.
16:00-17:30	HUM:Global Talk! – What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms Center for Culture and the Mind Presentation by Jonathan Metzl, award-winning author, Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and Director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, Vanderbilt University, with introduction and comments by Professor Ana Antic from the Center for Culture and the Mind followed by audience Q&A.

Part 3: UN City

UN City, Marmorvej 51, Copenhagen. Photo ID required for entry to UN City.

16:30-20:30	Big Water docUNight at UN City Welcome and introduction to film by the moderator followed by a keynote speech, the screening of the documentary film, Big Water, and a moderated panel debate followed by a reception.
16:30 - 17:30	Arrival and refreshments
17:30	Welcome by moderator Noa Valentin Katz Søgaard, Head of UN City Communications
17:35	Keynote by Jorge Moreira da Silva, Under-Secretary-General and UNOPS Executive Director
17:45	Film screening of ‘Big Water’
18:25	Interview with the filmmakers followed by audience Q&A Filmmakers: Anna Tsyhyma, Director and Cinematographer and Ghanna Mamonova, Journalist and Media Manager Moderator: Noa Valentin Katz Søgaard
19:05	Panel discussion followed by audience Q&A Panelists: Flemming Splidsboel Hansen (Senior Researcher, DIIS) Nataliya Popovych (Co-founder and Chairperson, Ukraine House in Denmark) Tim Lardner (Regional Director for Eastern and Central Europe, UNOPS) Moderator: Noa Valentin Katz Søgaard
20:00	Farewell