Fruiful Failure: Historical Perspectives, Technological Innovations, Resilience, and Ethical Implications.

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.sarneckaunibe.ch