Áron Birtalan’s 50% seminar

This PhD seminar explores technologies of intimacy and permeability and the possibility of a theology of touch. The research unfolds under the influence of three women mystics from the 13-14th century: the beguines Hadewijch of Brabant and Mechtild of Magdeburg and the heretic Marguerite Porete. Focusing on how language, attention and sensation is mobilised through their writings, these historical texts are put to dialogue with current voices in expanded choreography, participatory and relational practices, New Materialist philosophy and contemporary radical theology. Grounding the research in praxis, the work hopes to create space for movements in which virtual and enfleshed bodies contaminate one-another, becoming compost for living-dying languages, technologies and epistemologies in art and theology.

Read more about the research project: Your Bones Hold the Shape of What’s to Come

Signup and Tickets

1. an afternoon seminar, including guided presentation, opponent’s response and an open discussion of the research project
2. an accompanying Reading Night, with meals, readings, live music and the possibility to sleep at the venue
   
   You can choose to participate in either or both of the program items. Please note that the overnight event is organised independently of SKH and will require a separate signup and a paid ticket. More info below.

• Signup link for afternoon seminar via the green ticket button on this website
• Signup link for overnight event here: Overnight event

Schedule for 20–21October (Friday)

– the schedule includes breaks and afternoon fika

13:00–14.00 – doors open for afternoon seminar
14:00–15:00 – welcome and guided presentation
15:00–17:00 - opponent’s response and open conversation
17:00–19:00 – buildup for overnight event
19:00–20:00 – doors open for the Reading Night
20:00–21:00 – dinner
21:00–08:00 – start of reading, concert and sleeping
08:00–10:00 – breakfast and wrap-up

Content and Accessibility

The seminar and the after-event both feature sensitive sound fields and (optional) participatory exercises in attention and sensation. The venue is fully accessible. 
The seminar touches on topics of religion, grief, ideas about the afterlife, sensuality, contamination, erotics, and the limits of consensual relationships.

PhD student: Áron Birtalan
Opponent: Simone Kotva (University of Oslo, University of Cambridge)
Supervisors: John-Paul Zaccarini (Stockholm University of the Arts), Erin Manning (Concordia University)
Artistic collaborators: Gabriel Widing, Maren Wolf
Overnight music: Extracts of the XIV, Sonja Tofik, Macumbista, Gleemaiden