Launch of the book series "Udfordringer" - "Challenges"

Launch of the book series Udfordringer

The humanities are crucial to our ability to understand and address society's grand challenges.
The Nordic Humanities Centre is now launching a series of short, pithy and timely books that bring humanities knowledge into the public debate to nuance, strengthen and challenge the public conversation. The series is called Challenges - short and sweet.

Shedding new light on familiar notions
The books show how climate change, war, polarisation, misinformation, new technologies and other pervasive societal challenges require historical, cultural and critical perspectives.  Each book in the series sheds a different light on our usual perceptions, provides a concrete concept that we can use as a tool to better orientate ourselves, and challenges the reader to rethink the challenges facing society.
The first two books in the series - Vild Vækst and Udsat Natur - will be launched on 20 March. You can meet the authors in a conversation moderated by science journalist Tor Arnbjørn.

The first two books in the series – Vild Vækst and Udsat Natur – will be launched on March 20 at a joint event with the Center for Applied Ecological Thinking.You can meet the authors in a conversation moderated by science journalist Tor Arnbjørn.

Challenge 1: Can economic growth and ecological sustainability go hand in hand?

Vild Vækst – by Niklas Olsen and Tue Andersen Nexø

•    In Vild Vækst, historian of ideas Niklas Olsen and writer Tue Andersen Nexø examine the many historical and political attempts to reconcile green transition with continued growth – from the welfare state of the 1960s to today’s technological promises. Together with Inge Røpke, professor of ecological economics at Aalborg University, they discuss the possibility of rethinking what we understand by ‘growth’.

Challenge 2: What do we do with wild nature?

Udsat Natur – by Johanne Gormsen Schmidt

•    With the ambiguous concept of exposed nature and examples from the current debate about horses and wolves in Denmark, writer Johanne Gormsen Schmidt points out how our cultural ideas about large animals carry an ambivalence towards the nature that we both want to protect and control. In the company of Morten D.D. Hansen, who is a biologist, nature educator and former curator of the Natural History Museum in Aarhus, she discusses the perspectives for rewilding initiatives and understanding of nature today.

Challenges is published by Gads Forlag/Nord Academic alongside a podcast series and is supported by The Carlsberg Foundation.
The book series originates from the Nordic Humanities Center, an interdisciplinary research environment at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark supported by The A.P. Moller Relief Foundation. The series was developed by Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Anna Cornelia Ploug, who are the subject editors of the books.

The event is free, but registration is required.