Marginal Subjects - Emotional Resonances: Navigating Research Collaborations and Audiences

Food offerings gathered at Rinshōji, Rinzai Zen temple in Kasugi City, Nagoya Prefecture. By Paulina Kolata. 10 September 2024.

This two-day workshop hosted by the Centre for Contemporary Buddhist Studies. It brings together scholars of religion to explore the complex emotional landscapes and ethical tensions that emerge when working with marginal subjects, be it through working with minority communities or embarrassing subjects such as food or menstrual waste. Focusing on the interplay between creative research methods, collaborative engagements, and audience reception, the workshop invites participants to reflect on how their work resonates emotionally—both with interlocutors and with viewers or readers.

Through the screening of an in-progress ethnographic film and a series of work-in-progress presentations, we aim to generate a shared space for constructive dialogue around the ethics of representation, the aesthetics of research storytelling, and the labour of collaboration. Together, we will ask: How do we responsibly and creatively navigate the boundaries of academic, artistic, and public audiences?

The workshop is organised through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Action Fellowship,  REFUSE: Disrupting Buddhist circular economies – excess and abandonment in contemporary Japan.

Participants

This is a closed event, but please do get in touch with Paulina Kolata, if you’d like to attend the film screening.

Programme

Day 1: Film Pre-screening & Feedback Session (by invitation)

Thursday, 8 May 2025

Preliminary film Screening: Food Stories of Buddhism and Waste in Contemporary Japan

The session will be focused on facilitated dialogue engaging the audience in offering constructive feedback on the narrative structure, visual language, and thematic depth of the film, as well as reflections on collaboration and ethics.

Food Stories of Buddhism and Waste in Contemporary Japan (preliminary screening)
by Paulina Kolata

Location: Building 7A, room 7A-0-16 (Jura Pejsestuen/The Law Fireplace)
Time: 15:00–17:00

15:00 Welcome and Introduction
15:15 Screening of Food Stories of Buddhist Excess in Contemporary Japan (approx. 45 mins)
16:00 Short Break and Refreshments
16:15 Feedback Session and Discussion
18:00 Dinner for the workshop participants

Day 2: Work-in-Progress Workshop

Friday, 9 May 2025

‘Marginal Subjects - Emotional Resonances: Navigating Research Collaborations and Audiences’ workshop

The workshop focuses on discussions of works in progress to generate a shared space for constructive dialogue around the ethics of representation, the aesthetics of research storytelling, and the labour of collaboration.

‘Marginal Subjects - Emotional Resonances: Navigating Research Collaborations and Audiences’ Workshop

Location: South Campus, Building 10, room 10-2-05
Time: 10:00–16:00

10:00 Welcome, opening remarks, and morning refreshments
10:15

Session 1: Fear and Belonging: Strategies for a Crossover Publication

Erica Baffelli, The University of Manchester

Jane Caple, The University of Manchester
11:00

Session 2: What’s the Framework? Navigating Research Collaborations with Danish

Muslim Artists

Maria Lindebæk Schmidt Lyngsøe, University of Copenhagen
12:00 Lunch
13:00

Session 3: Mobilising Religion for the Environment: Waste interventions in Dharamshala

Trine Brox, University of Copenhagen
13:45 Coffee break 
14:00

Session 4: Embodied Invisibility: A feminist ethnography on menstruation in Nepal

Sierra Humbert, University of Copenhagen
14:45

Session 5: Consuming Buddhist Excess: Visual Storytelling with Food

Paulina Kolata, University of Copenhagen
15:30 Concluding remarks and reflections over coffee
18:15 Dinner for the workshop participants