Conferences

ACSIS organizes workshops and conferences of various kinds, from tight meetings for specifically invited project groups to large conferences for the whole field of cultural studies.

Past Conferences

Current Issues in European Cultural Studies: ACSIS Conference 2011

In June 2011 ACSIS arranged its fourth Cultural Studies Conference, this time as an international conference on the subject “Current Issues in European Cultural Studies”. The conference picked up the thread from the Inter-conference of 2007 and it aimed to provide an updated inventory of main issues in European cultural studies today, covering cross-European topics and trends as well as regional developments in East, West, South, North and Central Europe. Apart from giving a view of Europe through the spectrum of Cultural Studies it also served as a open forum for other issues within the field of cultural research and about 200 participants took part in more than 30 parallell sessions on various subjects.

More information about the conference and the Conference proceedings can be found here: http://www.isak.liu.se/acsis/conference-2011?l=sv.

Culture~Nature, Norrköping, 15-17/6 2009

In the early summer of 2009 ACSIS arranged a big national conference on the theme ”Culture~Nature” that put some of the most essential questions for cultural research on the agenda. Of all the numerous definitions of culture the one that defines culture in opposition to nature is by far the most fundamental. The relation between culture and nature has been regarded as an absolute dichotomy, but today – in a world of climate changes and genetic engineering – this clear distinction is becoming more and more blurred. While nature may set the conditions for human life, people’s way to live – their culture – also affects out natural conditions, leaving humanity with a constantly glowing burden of responsibility.
This was a special theme for ACSIS national conference for cultural research 2009, but the conference was open to all topics within cultural research and it partly aimed to give an overview of current cultural research in Sweden. You can read more about the conferens Culture~Nature (in Swedish) in the Programme. You can also read some of the presentations at the Conference Proceeding Published at Linköping University Electronic Press.

In relation to conference in 2009 we also put together some statistics regarding the participants of this as well as our former conferences:
Conference 2009
Conferences 2005-2009

INTER: A European Cultural Studies Conference in Sweden

11-13 June 2007 the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS) organised INTER: A European Cultural Studies Conference in Sweden, Norrköping June 11-13 2007, in collaboration with the European branch of the Association for Cultural Studies (ACS). The conference was open to advanced students and researchers committed to cultural studies, and the number of participants was more than 200. The event was located at the Louis De Geer Congress & Concert Hall and Linköping University campus in Norrköping.
The conference theme “inter”, was meant to summarise a series of challenges and opportunities for cultural research, each of which was in focus one of the three days: spatial internationalisation with a focus on European borders and links in political, economic, social and cultural processes as well as in academic practice, temporal interepochality and organisational interdisciplinarity. This relate to issues of intertextuality, intermediality, interactivity and intersectionality.

Plenary speakers: Regina Bendix, Tony Bennett, Georgina Born, Kirsten Drotner, Gerard Delanty, Paul Gilroy, Annette Kuhn, Joke Hermes and Gerhard Schulze.
 

Cultural Studies in Sweden: First National Research Conference
ACSIS, Norrköping, 13-15 June 2005

The first general and open Swedish conference for interdisciplinary cultural studies was held in Norrköping 13-15 June 2005. It was organised by the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS), and jointly funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond). Bodil Axelsson was the main organiser, and the conference had a programme committee consisting of the members of ACSIS national board (one professor from each Swedish university).

The three-days conference was held in Swedish and attracted 300 participants with more than 270 papers in nearly 50 group sessions proposed by scholars from all over Sweden. Plenary presenters included Peter Aronsson, Hillevi Ganetz, Ulf Hannerz, Lisbeth Larsson, Britta Lundgren, Nina Lykke, Orvar Löfgren, Diana Mulinari, Håkan Thörn, Mats Trondman and Helena Wulff. Plenary themes included: Critical dialogues in Swedish cultural studies; Geocultural scenarios; High and low - Aesthetics and interpretations; Black holes and white spots in cultural studies; Manuscripts for mourning - orthodoxies, promises and critique; Who is deconstructing whom, why and with what consequences?

Session themes included Cultures of reproduction; Food genealogies; The renaissance of the city; Religion and popular culture; Representations of the past; The experience industry; Literature as culture/culture as literature; Border work in higher education; Cultures of globalisation, cultural politics and the postcolonial; Things, interpretations and materiality; Trust reconsidered; Feminist cultural studies; and Geographies of communication.

This was a decisive step to strengthen Swedish cultural studies, and it was decided to organise a second, similar event in 2007. A national network for cultural studies was also formed.

As a result of the conference 2005 a book was publisched in March 2007, Kulturstudier i Sverige (Studentlitteratur, 2007). In 19 chapters - which are all dealing with questions discussed during the 2005 ACSIS conference - the book presents the most recent cultural studies research in Sweden. It is edited by Bodil Axelsson and Johan Fornäs.

The predominatly Swedish but sometimes also English abstracts and other conference material can be found here.