Security and preparedness: Culture, crisis, and control in troubled times

About the symposium

In an era troubled by threats of ecological tipping points, geopolitical instability, and uncontrollable technological acceleration, security has become a central lens through which societies interpret and address their challenges.

This symposium explores how the concept of security permeates our cultural imagination and institutional responses—from the deep structures of modernity’s fixation on control to the urgent demands of navigating contemporary and complex issues.

In a culture visited by the real and perceived threats of climate change, thermonuclear war, pervasive digitalization, energy and food insecurity, anomic war and hybrid forms of conflict, deterioration of liberal democracies, manipulation of free elections, pollinator decline, loss of biosphere, limitations to freedom of expression, including academic freedom and independency, violence targeting public spaces, deterioration of trust, to name but a few—is security a viable way to reinstate and exert control?

Can we imagine other futures? Or is security, in its original sense of being a state without worry, the state that we should worry the most about?

Through four interdisciplinary sessions, we will examine how security concerns and desires may shape and permeate our thinking, our sense of safety, autonomy, and community, as they become more prominent in political discourses, technoscientific practices, and societal planning that seek to mitigate the unplannable. 

Join us for a day of critical reflection and engaged dialogue on the cultural foundations and contemporary manifestations of the security paradigm.

Registration

Join us in the conversation! The symposium is open for everyone, but due to limited capacity we recommend that you register early to secure your place. The symposium will be held in English and will not be streamed.

• Register using this form - deadline 21 November at 12 noon.

Welcome!

Programme