2024 Conference Recap

All,

The 21st Biennial ISRLC Conference finished on Sunday, 8th of September, in the resplendent warmth and sun of the Danish countryside. Over four active days, participants explored the conference’s thematic question – The Irreplicable Human/-ities? – within the serene environment of Hotel Rebild Bakker, nestled in the forested region of northern Jutland. Fourteen different panels and two plenaries structured the daytime events, while evening conversations over food and drink widened the more formal presentations within a relaxed and, in many cases, deeper set of discussions and cross-fertilised interests. In sum, the conference offered a rich and stimulating, at times provocative and unsettling, interrogation into the nature of what it means to be human in the 21st century and the implications this has for the future of the Humanities.

In the opening plenary session, which set the conference in motion Thursday afternoon, seven different panel convenors offered their perspective on the issues at stake in current trajectories of modern technology, as these have forced us to reassess our understanding of humanness, and how as scholars we ought to go about studying this humanness. Ideas ranged from a defence of what the Humanities have traditionally been able to offer, to concerns around justice and freedom, to considerations of what constitutes a posthuman reality, to the nature of irreplicability within such arts as music, to a revival of hermeneutics as part of an existential questioning, to the displacement, or being made homeless, from our comfortable conceptions, to queer notions of an inhumanities and of undisciplines.

In the keynote address Saturday afternoon, Prof. Timothy Beal (Case Western Reserve) challenged us to think with, not against, new technological developments such as artificial intelligence. By way of demonstration, inspiration and provocation, he showcased ways we as scholars in the Humanities might repurpose certain concepts (e.g. generativity, process and attention) to build things that facilitate difficulty, frustrate felicitousness, and resist automation – all by engaging with machine intelligence rather than ignoring or dismissing it. Daunting as it may seem to those of us who feel machine technology is increasingly beyond our grasp, Prof. Beal’s address was a call to action – participate in the processes, as experts in process over product.

As the conference ended with a heightened sense of the interdisciplinary possibilities we bring to the table as Humanities scholars, we are extremely grateful to Marianne Schleicher and her University of Aarhus team for organising such a well-run event to ensure those possibilities had a chance to flourish clearly and inspiringly. The logistics involved in gathering 70+ international scholars to such a distinct location, removed from any urban centre, were considerable. Yet all participants agreed that the strong organisation of our hosts made this conference a highly enjoyable, motivating, and, to borrow a central term from the keynote, generative experience. Thanks to Marianne again for all her and her team’s hard work.

As per our constitution, Marianne will now take over the vice-president’s role, in support of the new incoming president yet to be determined. We are grateful to our out-going vice-president Alana Vincent, who has given many years of service to the Society in several capacities. We also want to acknowledge again Sage Elwell’s many efforts in revamping the Society’s website, which you all will have appreciated even if not a participant in Denmark.

The site for our next conference in 2026, and thus the person who will become the new president, are still being negotiated, though we have at least one frontrunner. As per tradition it should return to the UK, and we hope to be able to announce the precise location very soon. Please stay tuned.

If you were unable to join us in Denmark this year, we sincerely hope that you put aside time in your 2026 calendars– probably in October some time – as well as in your budgeting, to attend the next iteration. As participating members will tell you, the conferences are high points in our academic schedules; they help to revive us in what is so often, and increasingly, a burdensome institutional climate. This year was no exception. We thus hope as many of you as possible will join the continuing interdisciplinary conversations and camaraderie that are unique to the ISRLC.

With warm wishes,

Andrew Hass

General Secretary

International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture