The International Association of Scandinavian Studies (IASS) will be hosting its 32nd conference at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics European of the University of Copenhagen from 7 to 10 August 2018. The theme of the Conference is “Scandinavian Exceptionalisms”.

More about the conference theme

The concept of “Scandinavian Exceptionalism” is used within the social sciences to describe the distinctive features of the Nordic welfare state models. The concept implies a perception of something common to the Nordic countries: a distinct model of society based on a particular arrangement of the relations between individual, family, state and market. Yet, the concept of Scandinavian Exceptionalism(s) also draws on a set of cultural ideas and discourses about community, individualism, sexual liberation, gender equality, environmental awareness etc.

With the theme of this Conference we wish to invite to an interdisciplinary investigation into the multiple ways in which ideas and narratives of “the Nordic” and “Scandinavian” have been constructed discursively and aesthetically throughout history. How did the concepts of the North, Nordic and Scandinavian emerge historically? In what ways, have they been narrated, staged and visualized in various cultural domains – in literature, art, design, architecture and media culture? And how are they represented and renegotiated today?