Czech writer Petra Hůlová won the hearts of readers already with her debut novel, All This Belongs to Me (Paměť mojí babičce, 2002), which won the prestigious Magnesia Litera Award for Discovery of the Year in the Czech Republic and was named Best Novel of the Year by the Czech daily Lidové noviny. All her subsequent works testify to Hůlová’s masterful storytelling – skilfully interlacing the personal stories of her characters with broader social and cultural issues. 

She defines her writings as "3G": always working with the topics of gender, generations, and geography. Hůlová’s works that have been translated into Slovenian include the novels Tajga Station (Stanice Tajga, Cankarjeva založba, 2016), in which she juxtaposes the European spirit against Siberian culture, and A Brief History of The Movement (Stručné dějiny Hnutí, Cankarjeva založba, 2020), a dystopic account of feminist dictatorship whose victims are not only men. 

Hůlová holds a degree in Culturology from Prague's Charles University. She lived in Mongolia for a year as an exchange student after having studied the language and culture for several years. She was a Fulbright scholar in the US at New York University’s Department of Anthropology.

The event will be held in English with Slovenian translation. 
 

An Embodied Faith: A Christian Critique of Digitality, Prof. Noreen Herzfeld, PhD, St. John’s University, College of St. Benedict (USA) and ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies)
Of all major religions, Christianity places the strongest focus on the incarnation of God in Jesus, his bodily resurrection and his real presence in the Eucharist. 
The digital revolution has revived the issues raised as early as in the Early Christianity about the goodness of the material world, the transcendence of God and the human capacity to transcend our material bodies.

Dreams, Archetypes and Artificial Intelligence, Assist. Prof. Maja Gutman Mušič, PhD, ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and ISH Alma Mater Europaea
Carl Gustav Jung believed that the archetypes are of significant importance in the interpretation of dreams. Today, utilizing the linguistic tools of artificial intelligence, Jung's thesis can be empirically proven. The paper focuses on the digital project “2020 Dreams: Toward a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum” published last year by Stanford University Press, and a Fulbright Project aimed at identifying and analysing archetypal states in dreams based on the Sleep and Dream Database.

Within the framework of the national research programme Constructive Theology in the Age of Digital Culture and the Anthropocene, ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and the Association for Comparative Religious Studies.

Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots and Identity, Prof. Vojko Strahovnik, PhD, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Theology
The paper addresses the issue of interaction between humans and artificial intelligence systems, in particular the AI programs called Large Language Models (LLM), which form the basis for chatbots. The various issues surrounding this interaction will be addressed mainly from the perspective of identity. A main issue to examine is how identity is perceived and (trans)formed in the interaction between humans and AI.

The End of Books and the Challenges of Religious Thinking in the Age of Textuality, Assist. Prof. Luka Trebežnik, PhD, ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and ISH Alma Mater Europaea
The lecture addresses the question of how the end of books, especially as the end of a certain way of reading and approaching the truth, affects religions, especially Western religions intrinsically structured as religions of books/Scriptures. The age of digital textuality confronts us with hermeneutical challenges that are in many ways diametrically opposed to the old religious ways of interpreting the world. Can religions based on the idea of “in the beginning was the Word” transcend the age of books and fully affirm the age of textuality?  
 

Within the framework of the national research programme Constructive Theology in the Age of Digital Culture and the Anthropocene, ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and the Association for Comparative Religious Studies.

Religious Communities in the Virtual Age Prof. Aleš Črnič, PhD, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences
The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled many religious communities to establish new, more intense attitudes towards technologies and the digital worlds. The paper presents a concise overview of the concept and main findings of CHANSE-Recovira, an international research project that examines how the shape, role, and experience of religious life in Europe has been transformed by contemporary technology and digital culture.

Digital Eco Spirituality? Phenomenology and Ethics of Experiencing "Nature" in Virtual Reality, Assist. Prof. Gorazd Andrejč, PhD, University of Groningen, Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society and ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies)
In recent years, the practice of immersing people in the visual and auditory worlds of different "natural" environments through virtual reality has been expanding dramatically. Part of this cultural phenomenon is the concept of digital eco spirituality: cultivating a deeper sense of connection with the earth and all living beings, and connecting with the Divine by immersing ourselves in the virtual natural world.


Within the framework of the national research programme Constructive Theology in the Age of Digital Culture and the Anthropocene, ZRS Koper (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and the Association for Comparative Religious Studies.

 Kaja Sajovic is Slovenia's most notable culinary travel writer – always portraying the milieus in which chefs create, from the world's most lauded off-the-beaten-track restaurants to the finest third-world street-food locations, while narrating her experiences of encountering the greatest masters of taste. While her travel memoirs have not (yet) been published as a book, she regularly writes posts for a widely read online media outlet, MMC RTV Slovenija.
 

Originally from Radovljica, Alenka Vreček moved to the US several decades ago to teach skiing and start a family. Diagnosed with a serious illness, she has lent a new sense of purpose to her life through a cycling tour from Lake Tahoe, her home, to her second home on the north-west coast of Mexico. An account of this journey, titled She Rides, came out in the US in 2023, and was published in Slovenian (translator Lili Potpara) in spring 2024 under the working title Naj se vrti. 

Nataša Kramberger lives in Berlin and Jurovski dol, writes novels and columns, and owns a farm. The talk will focus on her book on Berlin, Brez zidu (Cankarjeva založba 2014), in which she also writes about other places, particularly addressing the changes that this astonishing city has undergone in recent decades.
 

Evald Flisar has authored a series of travel novels and fiction books featuring travel motifs, the most notable and widely read of which is Čarovnikov vajenec (1986), mention should also be made of the travel books Tisoč in ena pot (1979), Južno od severa (1981) and Popotnik v kraljestvu senc as well as Zgodbe s poti (2000). Evald Flisar is Slovenia’s most translated writer and a globetrotter who has visited just under 100 countries. He lived in London and Australia over a period of several years.
 

Irena Cerar has authored a number of books, among which perhaps the most widely popular are the fairy-tale Slovenia travel guides aimed at families, as well as travellers young and old. The talk will also focus on her nature writing, in particular her two books Potepuški okruški: kako sem hodila po robu (Buča 2021) and Svetišča narave: sedem tednov vseživosti (UMco 2024).
 

Anunciada Fernández de Córdova is a Spanish writer and diplomat who has devoted part of her career to ambassadorial duties in Slovenia. Two of her books, the travelogue Letijo dnevi (Cankarjeva založba 2011) and the poetry collection Prodiranja (Študentska založba 2011), have been published in Slovenian, and her poetry, Estaciones en Ljubljana, has been published as a dual-language book (2015).