1. art and entertainment
2. books and literature

SKAM
& SKYLD
GUILT & SHAME
AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
30.-31. OKTOBER 2014
DET HUMANISTISKE FAKULTET
KAREN BLIXENS VEJ 4, 2300 KBH. S
AUDITORIUM 15A.0.13
LÆS MERE PÅ
INSS.KU.DK/KALENDERA/SKAM-OG-SKYLD-E14
KONFERENCE OM SKAM OG SKYLD
I LITTERATUREN
International Konference, 30.-31. oktober 2014
Arrangeret af forskergruppen Forfatter- og fortællestudier,
Københavns Universitet, i samarbejde med Aalborg Universitet.
Konferencen har til formål dels at undersøge repræsentationer af skam og skyld i litteraturen
med hovedvægt på de sidste tyve års dansk/nordiske (auto)fiktioner, dels at placere skam og
skyld i en større historisk-sociologisk og fænomenologisk sammenhæng.
I takt med den stigende individualisering og den politisk-kulturelle konsensus omkring konkurrencestaten som ramme også for de sociale bånd, ser vi et voksende antal narrativer inden for
litteratur, film, stand-up og reality-tv, der beskæftiger sig med skam i alle afskygninger. Disse
narrativer kan opfattes som forskellige reaktioner på konkurrencestatens krav til ensretning, effektivitet og disciplinering, som afføder konstante følelser af skam og skyld, sideløbende med at
nye typer af skamløshed breder sig. Men narrativerne har samtidig formål i sig selv, der rækker
ud over den sociale reaktionsdannelse.
Konferencen er opbygget i to blokke, en ’dansk’ dag og en ’engelsk’ dag. Mens den danske
blok fortrinsvis tager udgangspunkt i emner af litterær karakter, er den engelske af fortrinsvis
historisk-sociologisk og fænomenologisk karakter. Det er også på andendagen, at konferencens
tre internationalt kendte keynotes optræder: Dan Zahavi, Deborah Martinsen og Thomas J.
Scheff.
GUILT & SHAME
– AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
International Conference, 30-31 October 2014
Organized by the research group ”Forfatter- og fortællestudier”,
University of Copenhagen in collaboration with Aalborg University.
The main aims of the conference are to explore representations of shame and guilt in literature
with special attention to the last twenty years of Danish/Nordic (auto)fictional narratives, and
to frame and discuss shame and guilt within a historical-sociological and phenomenological
context.
The ongoing individualization and political-cultural consensus that it is now the Competition
State that constitutes and forms the social bonds, has sparked a growing number of narratives
in literature, film, stand-up and reality-TV dealing with the concept of shame in various ways.
These narratives can be regarded as different responses to the rigid demands of the Competition State (discipline, efficiency and uniformity), which creates constant feelings of shame and
guilt, while at the same time different types of shamelessness develop. These (auto)narratives
do, however, have goals of their own reaching beyond their role as responses to structural and
sociological transformations.
The conference is structured in two blocks: one day with papers in Danish and one day with
papers in English. While the Danish block primarily focuses on shame and guilt in a literary
context, the English day will deal with the topic within historical-sociological and phenomenological contexts, too. On the second day a line-up of internationally acclaimed scholars will
deliver their key-notes: Dan Zahavi (University of Copenhagen), Deborah Martinsen (Columbia
University) and Thomas J. Scheff (UCLA).
Torsdag 30. oktober, kl. 09.00-16.00:
Auditorium 15A.0.13
Mediator: Mads Bunch
09.00-9.15 Introduktion ved Poul Behrendt og Gorm Larsen
09.15-10.00 Gorm Larsen, lektor, Institut for Kommunikation,
AAU-CPH: Frihed, angst og skam i præstationssamfundet
Fra flere forskellige sociologers side – fra Antony Giddens over Charles Taylor til
Byung-Chul Han – karakteriseres vores samtid ikke blot som et hidtil uset mulighedsrum, men også
gennem en fordring om at gribe dette mulighedsrum og realisere sig selv.
Der er ikke længere tale om at følge fastlagte livsbaner, men selvrealisering hviler på den enkeltes
skuldre. På den måde bliver frihed paradoksalt nok koblet med et påbud. Samtidig slår denne byrde
om at præstere ud i oplevelse af mæthed og tomhed og forlener subjektet med en grænseløs skam.
Men hvordan hænger denne idé om frihed – som siden Kierkegaard har fået angst som sit
Medusa-ansigt – og skam nærmere sammen, og hvordan kan denne skam-forståelse relateres til en
mere klassisk forståelse af skam?
10.15-11.00 Louise Zeuthen, lektor, KU:
Skam og skyld som grænse og mulighedsrum – hos Bjørn Rasmussen
og Kirsten Thorup
Med afsæt i Judith Butlers performativitetsteorier, og med eksempler fra Bjørn Rasmussens Huden er
det elastiske hylster som omgiver hele legemet (2011) og Kirsten Thorups Bonsai (2000), skal det undersøges, hvilken rolle skyld og skam har i de forhandlinger, som subjektet indgår i med samfundets
normer og traditioner for overhovedet at gøre sig genkendelig som subjekt.
11.15-12.00 Erik Skyum-Nielsen, lektor, KU:
Skamløshed og skyld hos Bent Vinn Nielsen
Indlægget vil rumme en læsning af Bent Vinn Nielsens roman En skidt knægt (1998) med perspektivering til hans Realiteternes verden (1992), Godheden selv (2000) og En bedre verden (2004).
Analysen vil blive søgt vinklet psykologisk, etisk og eksistentielt. Afslutningsvis inddrages Rune Lykkebergs omtaler af Vinn Nielsen i Kampen om sandhederne (2008).
12.00-13.00 Frokost
13.00-13.45 Nils Gunder Hansen, professor, Institut for Kulturvidenskaber,
SDU: Skam i skamløshedens tid
Oplægget vil ud fra klassiske og nyere sociologiske teorier om skam hos Georg Simmel og Anthony
Giddens se nærmere på Kirsten Hammanns roman Se på mig! fra 2011. Romanen handler bl.a. om
intim overvågning. Oplægget vil diskutere, om skammen har fået en ny status i nutidens samfund,
hvor medialisering og teknologi rykker hidtidige grænser mellem privat og offentligt.
14.00-15.00 Poul Behrendt, adjungeret professor, KU:
Skam som plotskaber i Min kamp
Retten til ens egen historie er ikke lovfæstet i Skandinavien. Ikke desto mindre er det den, som gang
på gang er på spil i nordiske autofiktioner efter årtusindskiftet. På en ganske særlig måde hos Karl
Ove Knausgård, hvis seks bind er bevidst struktureret omkring den tilbageholdte skam ved at fortælle
– og få fortalt – sin egen historie.
15.15.16.00 Plenum
Asluttende debat mellem oplægsholdere og sal
Friday 31 October, 09.15-16.30:
Auditorium 15A.0.13
Mediator: Louise Zeuthen
9.15-10.15
Dan Zahavi, Professor, Department of Media, Cognition
and Communication, University of Copenhagen:
Sociality and selfhood: the case of shame
On many accounts, shame is an emotion that targets and involves the self in its totality. In shame,
the self is affected by a global devaluation: it feels defective, objectionable, condemned. The basic
question I wish to raise and discuss is the following: What does the fact that we feel shame tell us
about the nature of self? Does shame testify to the presence of a self-concept, a (failed) self-ideal,
and a capacity for critical self-assessment, or does it rather, as some have suggested, point to the fact
that the self is in part socially constructed? Should shame primarily be classified as a self-conscious
emotion or is it rather a distinct social emotion?
10.30-11.30 Deborah Martinsen, Professor, Columbia University, NY:
Shame and Narrative Strategy in Twentieth-Century Literature
In this talk, I will explore how shame works, touch on how Dostoevsky in the nineteenth
century transformed shame dynamics into narrative dynamics, and speculate on strategies
used by his twentieth-century successors to inscribe the shame experience into their writing. Unlike guilt, which has a standard script – transgression, repentance, expiation, and
return to community – shame is always a wild card. Because it has no fixed script, shame
can disrupt interpersonal as well as narrative expectations. Because witnessing shame,
even represented shame, is contagious, it can cause witness discomfort. And because
shame paradoxically alienates yet integrates, shame and its portrayal arouse our emotive
as well as evaluative faculties. Authors who use shame dynamics as narrative strategies
position readers as witnesses to exposed shame, thereby activating our hearts and minds
and heightening our awareness of self, others, and the world.
11.30-12.30Lunch
12.30-13.30 Mads Bunch, Assistant professor, Ph. D., University of Copenhagen:
Shame and Shamelessness in the works of Nielsen
Since his debut Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001). An autobiography (2003), the author has written
several narratives (under various pen names) within the paradigm of autofiction. In these narratives
real people appear with their real names as protagonists and Nielsen himself as the antagonist.
The common character set-up is that Nielsen places himself in the role as the underdog, who is
full of shame (e.g. for not being a famous writer, for coming from a rural area, for being thin and
androgynous, awkward in social settings, etc.), while at the same time he shamelessly exposes the
personal and private life of the protagonists. This paper will discuss the interplay between shame and
shamelessness in autofictional narratives using Nielsen’s oeuvre as a prime example, but also touching
on the works of other autofictional writers such as Pablo Llambias and Karl Ove Knausgård in order to
discuss the seemingly paradoxical strategy of shamelessness as a way of overcoming shame.
13.45-14.45
Mons Bissenbakker, Associate Professor,
Centre for Gender studies, INSS:
Not in Denmark: Shame as a national orientation device
in Danish debates on asylum policies
Taking my starting point in queer and de-colonial studies of shame, my analytical interest condenses around the different ways in which shame creates a continuum between the nation and the
national subject in Danish public discourses on asylum seekers (specifically the Church Asylum-case
from 2009). In this presentation I wish to investigate how shame orients the national subject and
the nation towards one another. Using examples from newspaper articles as well as shaming graffiti
situated in Copenhagen’s so-called ‘immigrant quarter’ I investigate shame as an ‘orientation device’.
Specifically I am interested in the way in which shame creates a geographical as well as a temporal
orientation point for The Danish Nation.
15.00-16.00 Thomas J. Scheff, Professor UCLA (via Skype):
The Role of Shame: All the World’s a Stage
This essay seeks to explain the meaning of Goffman’s metaphor of theatrical performance in his best
known book, Presentation of Self. In modern societies, we run the risk of shame almost constantly, so
we are on our guard. It seems that the pace of modern alienated societies punishes the mammalian
urge that humans have for connectedness (authentic pride) with others. These ideas seem to be supported by studies by Helen Lewis and Norbert Elias, and by my own recent study of Ngrams. As Elias’s
study proposed, virtually all shame is hidden in modern societies. The idea of hidden shame requires a
new definition of shame that is quite different than vernacular usage.
16.00-16.30:Plenum
Concluding debate between presenters and the audience present
SKAM & SKYLD
GUILT & SHAME