The Art of the Impossible:
Culture, Philosophy and Dissent from Havel to the Present
Christopher Ingold Lecture Theatre, UCL, 20 Gordon Street
Day One (Thursday, 23 May)
Registration; Coffee (9-9:45)
9:45-10: HE Michal Žantovský: Opening Remarks
Dissent and the Moral Life: Legacies of Havel
10-10:45:
Jacques Rupnik (Sciences Po): ‘Václav Havel and the Legacies of
Dissent Revisited’
10:45-11:30: Aviezer Tucker (UT Austin): ‘Living in Truth: Moral Authenticity
as Dissent’
11:30-12:15: Delia Popescu (Le Moyne): ‘Lived Responsibility: Václav Havel’s
Practical Approach to Private and Public Responsibility’
LUNCH (12:15-1:30)
1:30-2:15:
2:15-3:
Kieran Williams (Drake): ‘Havel’s subversive ohnisko
James Krapfl (McGill): ‘Europe, 1989-2012: A Progress Report on
the Global Revolution in the Sphere of Human Consciousness’
Tea Break (3-3:30)
3:30-4:15:
HE Martin Palouš (Knihovna Václava Havla): ‘The Parallel Polis
Thirty Years Later: Protecting Václav Havel’s Legacy for the 21st
Century’
[Related event: Masaryk Lecture (7:30p.m.) at Slovak Embassy: Kieran Williams:
‘The Past of Czechoslovakia—Not the Future of Britain?’]
Day Two (Friday, 24 May)
Thick Histories
9:30-10:15:
10:15-11:
Peter Bugge (Aarhus): ‘Zooming In: Discovering and Defining
Dissent in Svědectví before 1977’
Jonathan Bolton (Harvard): ‘Worlds of Dissent: Scenes from the
Life of Charter 77’
Coffee Break (11-11:30)
11:30-12:15: Veronika Tuckerová (UT Austin): ‘Thoroughly Possible: Ivan
Martin Jirous’s “Merry Ghetto” and its Legacy’
12:15-1:
Charles Sabatos (Yeditepe University, Istanbul): ‘The Erotics of
Dissidence: Foreign Writers and Women in the Czech
Underground
LUNCH (1-2)
Contemporary Echoes
2-2:45:
2:45-3:30:
Tamara Caraus (New Europe College, Bucharest): ‘From Charter 77
to Charter 2008: A Cosmopolitan Solidarity of Dissidents?’
Mikołaj Rakusa-Suszczewski (Warsaw): ‘The NO LOGO Message:
Polish Youth Against ACTA’
Tea Break (3:30-3:50)
3:50-4:35:
Padraic Kenney (Indiana): ‘Who Controls the Square? Occupied
Spaces and Democratic Transformation’
6 p.m.: Conference Reception, Europe House, with Baroness Sarah Ludford, MEP
Day Three (Saturday, 25 May)
Coffee (10:00-10:45)
Aesthetics and Politics
10:45-11:30: Peter Zusi (UCL): ‘Dissent at Rest: The Aesthetic Impulse to the
Active Life’
11:30-12:15: Tom Rowley (Cambridge): ‘Samizdat as Literary and Political
Device: Evgenii Fedorov’s Deep Opposition’
LUNCH (12:15-1:30)
1:30-2:15:
2:15-3:
Tim Beasley-Murray (UCL): ‘Politics and Impossibility’
Klara Kemp-Welch (Courtauld): ‘Reticence as Dissidence: A
Historiography of Antipolitics for Art History’
Tea Break (3-3:30)
3:30-4:30:
Pussy Riot’
Svetlana Boym (Harvard): ‘Arts of Dissent: From Sinyavsky to