A CIPSH 2020 International Conference

The Humanities, the SDGs, and the Demand on the Humanities/Human Sciences for Social Relevance:
Thinking and Rethinking Opportunities and Methodological Issues
Odense, Denmark, December 16-17, 2020
–
A CIPSH 2020 International Conference
hosted by
Faculty of Humanities
University of Southern Denmark

The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, having the honor to host the 2020 CIPSH General Assembly and Executive Committee Meeting December 14-15, 2020, invites CIPSH-linked scholars from around the world to join us and CIPSH also for a two-day conference, December 16-17, 2020, with the overall theme: “The Humanities/Human Sciences, the SDGs and the Demand on the Humanities/Human Sciences for Social Relevance: Thinking and Rethinking Opportunities and Methodological Issues.”

The University of Southern Denmark, with the Faculty of Humanities in strong support thereof, has committed itself to focus attention on the various ways that the university, in research as well as teaching and study programs, can contribute, one way or the other, to critical thinking about as well as the furthering of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

At the same time the Faculty of Humanities, like the humanities in so many other places around the world, as well as like CIPSH, is engaged in a continuous process of rethinking and reformulating ways in which the humanities can and must be applied to, i.e. analyze, understand, explain and engage with contemporary social and cultural challenges and issues, locally and globally in a scientifically sober and sound way.

This conference, hosted and run in cooperation with CIPSH, hopefully can contribute to this kind of rethinking, not just at the University of Southern Denmark and its Faculty of Humanities but also at an international level, and within the CIPSH member associations and affiliates.

The conference will take place in downtown Odense, in a historic setting close to the birthplace of the famous H.C. Andersen, and the academic program, with four keynotes and a series of plenary-round table sessions, will be supplemented by a lecture at the H.C. Andersen Museum on Andersen as well as by another lecture in and on the main Cathedral.

While keynote speakers are in the process of being confirmed, the themes of the following round-tables have been confirmed:

• Understanding the Humanities
• The Humanities and the SDGs
• The Humanities, Technology and AI – and ‘Tech humanities’
• The Humanities and Health – and ‘Health Humanities’
• The Humanities, Museums, Libraries and Archives
• The Humanities and Art
• The Global History of Humankind CIPSH Project

Chairs of the round-table sessions are in the process of being confirmed.

While the SDU has made arrangements for up to 25 delegates to the CIPSH business meetings to stay for free for two nights (beginning Sunday December 13 or Monday December 14) at the 4 star Hotel Knudsen’s Gaard, participants to the conference who want to stay at the same hotel will be offered a discount so that a one night stay at the hotel will cost no more than 100 € per night, breakfast included.

For your information: Odense can be reached by direct and frequent InterCity trains from Copenhagen Airport. The trip takes some 90 minutes. Buses run from Odense Central Station to the campus at least three times per hour and the trip takes some 20 minutes. The train ticket is valid also for the bus.

The hotel mentioned above will be offering delegates and participants a special discount, meaning that they can make reservations for any one night spent in the hotel on top of the two nights paid by the Faculty of the Humanities for approximately 100 € per night, breakfast included. Participants making reservations with the hotel simply inform the hotel that they are participants to the named conference. The campus can be reached by taxi in 5 minutes from the hotel. Odense downtown and Odense main train station is but 15 minutes from the campus by bus or taxi.

For any questions, e.g. as regards reading a paper on one of the themes mentioned, and for registration for the conference only, please contact Tim Jensen at t.jensen@sdu.dk.

Deadline for registration October 1, 2020. There is no registration fee.

Hotel reservation: please make your reservation as soon as possible if you want to stay at Hotel Knudsen’s Gaard. It is a busy hotel and since most of the delegates to the CIPSH business meetings will stay there also during the conference, rooms may soon be sold out.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee and the Faculty of the Humanities, SDU

Simon Møberg Torp
Tim Jensen

Organizing Committee:

• Luiz Oosterbeek, Secretary-General of CIPSH
• Hsiung Ping-Chen, member of the Ex.Comm. of CIPSH
• Tim Jensen, member of the Ex.Comm. of CIPSH and senior lecturer at the University of Southern Denmark
• Simon Møberg Torp, Dean, Faculty of the Humanities, University of Southern Denmark
• Lars G. Binderup, Vice-Dean, Faculty of the Humanities, University of Southern Denmark
• Gitta Stærmose, Secretary, Faculty of the Humanities, University of Southern Denmark