Fruitful Failure seeks to explore the constructive potential of failure within the realms of literature, art history, archaeology and the digital humanities. Rather than viewing failure solely as a negative outcome, this conference will investigate how failure has often been a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and ethical transformation. By examining various dimensions of failure, this interdisciplinary forum aims to redefine the concept across several academic fields. The conference will foster cross-disciplinary dialogue, drawing on case studies and recent methodological developments to emphasize the role of failure in stimulating breakthroughs and challenging conventional narratives.
Program
Thursday, 05 June 2025
9:00 Registration
9:15 Welcome and Opening remarks
Marcella Boglione (University of Bern)
and Zuzanna Sarnecka (University of Bern)
9:30-10:30 Keynote Lecture
Sylvia Brockstieger (University of Heidelberg)
and Mona Garloff (University of Innsbruck)
"Perceptions of Failure and Failure of Reception in (Early Modern) Academia"
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Panel 1 I Miscommunications and Failures of Reception
11:00-11:30 Raphael Szeider (University of Innsbruck)
"Resembling Augustus. Hadrian’s Strategy of Legitimisation"
11:30-12:00 Lika Tarkhan-Mouravi (Royal College of Art, London)
"Marginalised texts, immigrant subjectivity and translating beyond the limits of one's language"
12:00-12:30 Florian Gucher (University of Klagenfurt)
"Sleeping achievers, resigned dandies: Visual communication strategies of failure and subversion between apathy and a ‘vita contemplative'"
12:30-14:00 Standing Lunch (For All Attendees)
14:00-16:00 Panel 2 I Material Failure
14:00-14:30 Ashton Fancy (Princeton University)
"From Ruined to Renowned: The Reuse of Architectural Material in Roman Portraiture"
14:30-15:00 Agnieszka Dziki (Freie Universität, Berlin)
"Forging the Icon, Revealing the Process: Faulty Bronzes of Hans Leinberger (1480–1531)"
15:00-15:30 Azar Emami Pari (University of Passau)
"Echoes of the West: Farangi Sazi and the Fruitful Failure in Persian Painting"
15:30-16:00 Fiona Sit (University of Leeds)
"The Unpredictability of Clay in Networks of Labour and Collaboration in Early Modern Rome"
16:00-16:30 Coffee Break
16:30-17:30 Keynote Lecture
Cara Rachele (ETH Zurich)
"Fear of Falling: Unstable Architectures in the Early Modern Period"
17:30-18:30 Apéro
19:00 Conference Dinner (For Speakers and Organisers)
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Friday, 06 June 2025
9:30-10:30 Keynote Lecture
Tobias Hodel (University of Bern)
"Algorithmic Promises: How to Fail with Technology"
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Panel 3 I Digital Humanities and its Failures
11:00-11:30 Luja Šimunović (University of Zagreb)
"The Failures and Reimaginations of Digital Utopia in Contemporary Art Practices"
11:30-12:00 Talayeh Dehghani Ghotbabadi (University of Bern)
"Transforming Data Presentation: Leveraging Gamification to Address Communication Failures in Dietary Carbon Footprint Calculators"
12:00-12:30 Dominik Lengyel (Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg)
"How an Interdisciplinary Approach Resolves Misconceptions about Historical Reconstruction"
12:30-14:00 Standing Lunch (For All Attendees)
14:00-15:30 Panel 4 I Failures in Sustainability
14:00- 14:30 Laura Agatha Eger (University of Heidelberg)
"Beyond Acceptance – How Disapproval Shaped the Art Market in the Late Middle Ages"
14:30-15:00 Timm Schmitz (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
"“Un défaut plus grand”: Heuristics of Failing, Artistic Judgement and the Limits of Pictorial Legitimacy in 17th-Century France"
15:00-15:30 Meital Raz (University of Amsterdam)
"The Legacy of the Losers’ Meeting: Failed Exhibitions in the Long 1960s"
15:00-15:30
15:30-16:00 Closing Remarks
All are welcome. Please register by 1 June 2025 via email: zuzanna.sarnecka@unibe.ch
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