An Engeromic Symposium on Love and Light

​To celebrate the return of the light, the Department of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies and the Velux-funded research project ‘Where Love Happens: Topographies of Emotions in Nineteenth-Century European Literature’ are organising a one-day symposium on Love and Light on 24 March 2023.

Scholars of all career stages from across Engerom will convene to discuss love and light within the languages and literatures of the Department throughout history.

The symposium follows the departmental language policy: people speak in the language in which they feel most comfortable.

Programme

Session one (chair: Lene) 
9:00-9:05 Welcome
9:05-9:20 Carsten Meiner
Love at first sight: a French literary history of le coup de foudre.
9:30-9:45 Charles Lock
"But is there good circuitry between us?" Electricity and the tropes of Eros.
9:55-10:10 Jytte Lyngvig
Paris — Réverbères — L'amour.
10:20-10:35 Joanna Beaufoy
To light and to delight: fairy lights, la fée électricité, and lighting for emotion, with reference to hygge.
10:45-11:00 Katrine Andersen
The metaphorology of light and the passion for (in)sight. Reflections on Amor y Pedagogía by Miguel de Unamuno.
15-minute coffee break 
Session two (chair: Joanna) 
11:15-11:30 Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
Love in the Mushroom Kingdom.
11:40-11:55 Johanne Gormsen-Schmidt & Tina Lupton
Lockdown reading of romance.
12:05-12:20 Christian Benne
Love, light, Corona.
12:30-12:45 Irina Hron
Light in French: Anecdotes of Light and (Neighbor-)Love.
Lunch provided for all speakers and audience members (45 minutes) 
Session three (chair: Carsten) 
13:40-13:55 Kirsten Ogilby
Illuminating the Dark Ages: Sensibility and Staging in William Hamilton's Historical Paintings.
14:05-14:20 Robert Rix
Light and Its Romantic Refractions in Nineteenth-Century Writings on the Arctic.
14:30-14:45 Efram Sera-Shriar
Lightness and Darkness in the Séance Room.
14:55-15:10 Sophie Thorkildsen
"I will sit in the shadow, and you shall sit in the sunlight" Love and light in the first Danish translation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
15:20-15:35 Lene Østermark-Johansen
"There stern religion quenched the unwilling flame": love and light before, within, and beyond the convent.
15:45-15:55 Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen
Closing remarks.
16:00 Drinks reception with music recital/chance to get some fresh air