Professor of History Niklas Olsen and Associate Professor of Literary Studies Tue Andersen Nexø discuss their co-authored book *Vild Vækst* and its themes. The audience is invited to ask questions and join the conversation about the book at the event on September 22 at the Thiemers Magasin bookshop in Copenhagen V.
Historian and MSCA fellow Frederik Forrai Ørskov talks about his book "Førkrigstid" at Thiemers Magasin on 3 November. The book highlights how the fear of war and disasters has shaped politics, culture, and society from the First World War to today.
'Billedtræthed' focuses on the role of photography in an image-saturated world and highlights the possibilities and limitations of photography. The book is written by Professor of Photography Studies, Mette Sandbye, who presents the book and invites questions and discussion about its themes.
Johanne Gormsen Schmidt discuss her book "Udsat Natur" and its themes in a open conversation with the audience at Thiemers Magasin on 6 October. The book, which is part of the "Udfordringer" series, explores nature management through culture and follows the traces of the wolf and the horse in the landscape and in literature.
Can the conversation about art help advance democratic dialogue and build bridges across deep disagreements? Professor of culture and technology Katrin Maurer and artist and pilot Simone Aaberg Kærn meet in a shared conversation about art’s "Hard Power." The conversation is part of an event organized by Billedkunstnernes Forbund.
Our fellows represent the Nordic Humanities Center at Kulturmødet Mors on 20–22 August 2026, where they will give a series of talks on topics including ecology and economics, cultural preparedness, debate culture, the role of art in times of crisis, and contemporary life in the shadow of war.
Professor Henry Jenkins will deliver a keynote presentation at the seminar The Civic Imagination: Resistance, Contestation and Activism in Participatory Culture, held at the University of Copenhagen on June 16, 2026. Jenkins’ talk draws on ideas being developed in conjunction with Robert Kozinets for the Frames of Fandom book series, exploring how fandom may shape new forms of public discourse and civic imagination.
The book "Billedtræthed", the third book in the series "Udfordringer - små indspark til store udfordringer", is now being launched. It will be marked with an event at Det Kgl. Bibliotek, where the book's author, Professor of Photography Studies Mette Sandbye, will discuss the book's theme with DR's Ukraine and Russia correspondent Matilde Kimer and Head of Photography and photographer Sigrid Nygaard.
Nordic Humanities Center and Kunstmuseum Brandts invite you to an exciting conversation about Inuuteq Storch's photographic practice and its significance today. Storch, who exhibited his work at the Venice Biennale 2024, has emerged as a central voice in Greenlandic contemporary art. How can art create space for conversation in a time of polarisation?
The humanities are crucial to our ability to understand and address society's grand challenges. The Nordic Humanities Centre is now launching a series of short, pithy and timely books that bring humanities knowledge into the public debate to nuance, strengthen and challenge the public conversation. The series is called Challenges - short and sweet.
The entire elite is in the Epstein files! The state is forcibly removing children! Politicians are lying! These statements are currently rampant on social media and, if they are to be believed, you might get the impression that there is no point in participating in democracy and voting in parliamentary elections. In this presentation, Kasper Grotle Rasmussen, associate professor of American Studies and fellow at the Nordic Humanities Center, explores the connection between conspiracy theories and democracy and why political discussion is better than extreme actions.
Artist Claus Carstensen will give a talk about the exhibition "Res Publica", which he curated at the Art Museum in Tønder in 2024. What does "art as a public matter" mean? What is the public? And not least, as already suggested, what is the relationship between art and the public? These are the three questions that the exhibition seeks to address.
In this conference, we bring together researchers, politicians and skilled professionals to discuss the geopolitical consequences of the war and present new perspectives on the significantly changed world order. How will the cultural field be included as an important factor? How do we wisely face the future with lessons learnt from history, and what opportunities does research have to contribute?
Event focussing on what the present can learn from history in terms of Danish/Nordic security policy and the territorial ambitions of great powers. Nordic Humanities Centre in collaboration with The Danish Foreign Policy Society. How has the Nordic region's challenging neighbour, Russia, acted in the Baltic Sea region in the past? Can a look back through the centuries reveal patterns we can learn from today?
What role do soldiers' stories from the frontline play? How do these narratives influence the development of society? In this lecture, Professor of Military History Tarak Barkawi, from Johns Hopkins University, takes the audience back to the Korean War (1950-1953).
What can witness testimonies teach us about war? Which roles can they play in transitional justice and memorialization and in the ongoing construction of our understandings of war? Based on examples from the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s and the ongoing war in Ukraine, the presentations in this research seminar investigate different types of war testimonies and how they can inform our knowledge and perceptions of wars and concomitant war crimes.
Nordic Humanities Center in collaboration with the Radicality Cluster at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. In this conversation, historians Charlie Krautwald and Frederik Forrai Ørskov discuss the content of their new books, which both revolve around the culture of fascism in the period between the two world wars.
The Nordic Humanities Center is hosting a seminar on cultural preparedness in uncertain times. In an era marked by new security threats, cultural preparedness is increasingly being discussed as a responsibility for cultural institutions. The question is whether more is now expected of museums than simply having a plan to safeguard collections. Cultural preparedness may also imply a new role for museums—as contributors to social cohesion and societal resilience.
Under the deliberately open and generic title Worldly Humanities, the Nordic Humanities Center is hosting a one-day seminar featuring short talks and presentations from various research environments that, in one way or another, engage with impact-driven, mission-oriented, problem-focused, challenge-based, or applied humanities.
The Nordic Humanities Center is hosting a debate at this year’s Folkemøde on the role of the Nordic region in a new world order, drawing on both historical and contemporary examples. The war in Ukraine has brought geopolitics back into the Nordic debate, and the region now finds itself at a crossroads, where long-standing ideals of neutrality are being challenged.
Geopolitics is back, and the Baltic Sea is once again dominated by great power rivalry. On Bornholm, in the centre of the strategically important and dangerous Baltic Sea, we will discuss the special conditions that make the Baltic Sea a geopolitical battle zone. Where has the battle for the Baltic Sea been over the past 200 years in art and great power politics, and what can we look forward to today?
This afternoon seminar focuses on the song contest Eurovision, which this year takes place on May 17th in Basel, Switzerland. We will discuss Eurovision as a cultural and political phenomenon, and the pressing themes of this year's Eurovision – both the musical and aesthetic ones, as well as the political and activist issues.
Come to the book launch on April 24th for the book Fælles liv (Common Life) by Tue Andersen Nexø. The book is an entry point into contemporary Danish literature, which in the past fifteen years has been contributed by authors who share the common theme of offering perspectives on how life can be lived outside the conventional frameworks of the welfare state.
On the occasion of the Press Photo of the Year exhibition at the Royal Library, the Nordic Humanities Center organizes two Tuesday conversations with Danish photographers about war and photography, d. March 25 and 1 April at 19-20.30.
On March 13, the roots of Nordicism and Scandinavianism are on the agenda. Some of the country's leading academic capacities will educate the audience about the history of the Nordic region, its relevance in the present day and, not least, about European peace 80 years after the liberation of Western Europe.
Panel debate on challenge-driven humanities: Scientific theoretical perspectives on 'grand challenges' and applied humanities by Anna Cornelia Ploug.
Word Festival is an annual event in Odense, dedicated to celebrating the word through lectures, talks and debates about culture, knowledge and society. The festival attracts both international and national cultural figures. Fellows at the Nordic Humanities Center present lectures and conversations about divorce experienced as children, refugee crises in Denmark and so-called "wild growth" and sustainability.
Nordic Humanities Center's free conference on the Nordic welfare model. Since the 1930s, the Nordic welfare states have attracted international attention as a special social model whose goal was to combine social security and individual freedom. But its legitimacy has also been challenged – both historically and today.
Debate event on Per Boje and Jeppe Nevers' new book "The Road to Prosperity: Capitalism and Modern Denmark" (Syddansk University Press 2024).
The Nordic Humanities Center and DaWS-history invite you to a seminar on Denmark's reception of refugees over 100 years. The seminar will analyze how the reception of refugees has been structured and organized across historical periods and in different political contexts. What role have state institutions played in the reception of refugees and how have legislation and administrative practices evolved? Which civil society organizations and other actors have contributed to shaping the reception process, and how have refugees and asylum seekers themselves had the opportunity to influence their reception conditions and integration?
Nordic Humanities Center, Neoliberalism in the Nordics, and Norden since the End of History invite researchers and students at UCPH Humanities and other interested parties to join our reading group on the 1990s.
In recent years, both in history and the social sciences, there has been growing interest in the so-called "history of lived experiences." How have fundamental societal institutions such as religion, the nation, democracy, or the welfare state been experienced at different times? Or more specifically, how have individuals in care experienced the welfare state's institutions? How was 19th-century nationalism experienced in the peasant homes of the time? How have different social groups experienced the rise of the market economy?
The Nordic countries have a long tradition of priding themselves as model democracies, yet what is meant by the term has been subject to political debate at various junctures in history. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss transforming notions of democracy in the Nordic countries from the late 19th to the early 21st century. At the centre of our discussions are the relationship between democracy and the welfare state, arguments of Nordic democratic exceptionality, and the similarities and differences across the Nordic region.
What significance has Danish society's structure and self-understanding as a "welfare state" had on the environmental policy pursued and on the population's different experiences of pollution? In this panel discussion, we start a dialogue between different professional areas with a view to providing different perspectives on pollution than the one that dominates in Christiansborg and in the public debate. We start from the question of how pollution is understood and addressed within literature, history and law.
What makes humanistic research contemporary? What is needed for literary, historical and cultural insights to be brought into play and correspond to the reality we live in, and how do we as humanists respond to society's great challenges? We investigate this for this event on challenge-driven humanistic research.
Committed! How should researchers, politicians and the media deal with engaged science? The Nordic Humanities Center and the Danish Institute for Advanced Study invite you to a book launch and a panel discussion on science and commitment.
The Nordic Humanities Center invites you to a panel discussion on how we listen to children and young people - on why it is difficult and how we can improve.
At this author meeting Faysa Idle talks about her book and the may afterthoughts it calls for. Will the deadly conflicts come to an end?
Urban Lundberg about "Forholdet mellem stat og borger i Sverige"
Based on his highly acclaimed book A shrinking country task: Sverige och biståndet 1945-1975 (2021, co-authored with Mattias Tydén and Annika Berg), NHC researcher Urban Lundberg will discuss ideas and reasons for the development of one of the most ambitious development aid programs in the world.
On the 26th of February from 15.30 to 17.00 - Søndre Campus, University of Copenhagen Meet author Katrine Marie Guldager for a conversation about the anger of welfare in her novel characters.
Nordic Humanities Center is a new research center at University of Southern Denmark and University of Copenhagen, that brings humanists perspectives on bigger social challenges. In the centers first year, we work with the research project: Legitimitet under Pres – Den Nordiske Models Fortid og Fremtid.