Kierkegaard Year 2026

The conference is dedicated to the 120th anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s birth and the 90th anniversary of Václav Havel’s birth.
Organised by: KUD Apokalipsa and the Søren Kierkegaard Central European Research Institute Ljubljana
In cooperation with: Cankarjev dom and the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme at the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO
Partners, sponsors and supporters: Cankarjev dom Ljubljana, MOST


Friday, 25. 9. 2026. Alma Karlin Hall

13:00 Opening of the Conference, Ceremonial Addresses

13:20 Wolfgang Müller-Funk (AT): The Riddles of Power and Cruelty. In Dialogues with Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel, and Others

13:50 MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Three movements from Bach’s Cello Suites Performed by: Vladimir Kovačič (SLO)

15:15 BOOK PRESENTATION
Wolfgang Müller-Funk (AT): On Cruelty, Moderated by Iztok Osojnik (SLO)

16:00 Tomáš Hejduk (CZ): Dissent, Moral Grandstanding and Self-Righteousness not only in Václav Havel´s Power of Powerless

16:30 Peter Kondrla (SK): Active Resignation and Intellectual Humility: Subjectivity as Resistance in Post-Totalitarian Contexts

17:00  In vino veritas Moderated by Niko Goršič (SLO)

18:30 Primož Repar (SLO): Kierkegaard, Arendt, Havel and the New Oikonomy of Relations, Existential Turn: From Anxiety to Responsibility

Saturday, 26. 9. 2026, Alma Karlin Hall

10:00 Bojan Žalec (SLO): Flight into the Digital and Flight from the Digital: A Sartrean Interpretation of Contemporary Escapism

10:30 Peter Rusnák (SK): The Significance of the Rule of Law and Education in Post-Totalitarian Reality 

11:00 Marko Markič (SLO): The Totalising Present and Existential Stress. Ontological Aspects of Everyday Affectivity

11:30 Andrzej Slowikowski (PL): The Ideal of the Political Subject and the Attitude of the Anti-Political Subject on the Basis of the Works of Søren Kierkegaard, Max Scheler, and Hannah Arendt

12:00 Thomas Diesner (DE): Totalization and Identification

12:30 Thomas Menamparampil (IND): Apocalyptic Abuse of Power

15:00 Amanda Marie Platek (DK): Tell Me What To Do

15:30 Stanislava Repar (SK/SLO): Kje smo končali z Novembrom ´89 na (Češko)Slovaškem: Who is afraid of Václav Havel?

16:00 Igor Tavilla (IT): Kierkegaard and the "Class Struggle" between Genders in Post-Totalitarian Societies

16:30 Tara Peternell (SLO): The Relation of Metanoetics and Absolute Nothingness in the Philosophy of Tanabe

16:45 Gašper Pirc (SLO): Performative Authoritarianism, the Politics of Recognition, and the Transformation of Public Discourse in the Digital Age

17:15 Matej Kapus (SLO): The Problem of Inner and Outer Responsibility 

17:30 Milosz Wierzbinski (PL): Manifest of the Kierkegaardian Subject

18:00 Gorazd Kovačič (SLO): The Concept of Totalitarian Government, and Post-totalitarianism, according to Hannah Arendt

18:30 Torben Lautrup (DEN): Why Kierkegaard Personally would Look out for Alternatives to a Mass Society like the Danish of Today

19:00 WORD – IMAGE – VOICE
Slovak Literature: Reading and Discussion (led by Stanislava Repar)

Sunday, 27. 9. 2026, Alma Karlin Hall

10:00 James Griffith (USA): Arendt on Natality and Derrida on Autogenesis
(ZOOM Lecture)
 
10:30 Abrahim H. Khan (CAN): From the “Crowd” to the “Concrete Other”: Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer on Subjectivity, Truth, and Responsibility 
(ZOOM Lecture) 

11:00 Iztok Osojnik (SLO): Schizo-Subject and the Autonomy of Poetic Speech

11:30 Dagmar Kusa (SK): Truth and Politics: An Arendtian Exploration of Transformations in Slovak Political Identity

12:00 Ciril Klajnšček (SLO): Dare to Be Human: Being Responsible in the Age of Globalitarianism

12:30 Luka Trebežnik (SLO): Totality and the Trace of Otherness: Deconstruction of Totalitarianism and the Groundlessness of Ethics  

13:00 Janko Rožič (SLO): TOTALitarism – A Misunderstood Whole  

13:30 Violet Anderson (USA): Dire Straits of the Soul: Totalitarian Destruction of the Individual's Freedom 

14:00  CLOSING OF THE 14TH CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP

14:30 PICNIC / LUNCH AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE ASSOCIATION AND INSTITUTE