Suffering, loss, catastrophic consequences; the apparent indifference of reality regarding our sense of the good and the just; human failings, conflicts, and their possible resolution – all of these experiences leave us perplexed and call for understanding, reflection, and human action. Tragic art, and especially staged and written tragedies, have for millennia heeded this call and thus occupied a crucial place in our attempts to explore the dark corners of the human experience – broken worlds and times out of joint.
This multidisciplinary workshop, gathering experts from literary studies, philosophy, the dramatic arts and theology, provides a dais for investigations into questions concerning tragedy and the tragic experience: its structure, scope, and importance. What kind of a dramatic and literary form is tragedy? What does it aim to depict, uncover, and produce? How is the tragic stage constructed? Does tragedy require a catharsis, closure, and resolution? Does tragedy help us understand the “tragic”, those aspects of the human experience that refuse unification and resolution? Can tragedy teach us to confront suffering, the value of sympathy and pity, and responsibility? Is tragedy ultimately a “classical” form, consigned to history – and if not, what do its contemporary forms and manifestations look like?
Guided by these questions, the workshop aims to discuss and explore tragedy from a broad theoretical and practical perspective. Bringing various perspectives and approaches into a mutual discussion, it intends not only to inquire into the structural elements of a literary and artistic form, but also into the possibilities (and shortcomings) of historical as well as contemporary tragedy and the tragic experience. Its ultimate aim is to bring into view some of the central emotional, ethical, and metaphysical facets of our everyday lives – lives inevitably shadowed by loss, suffering and catastrophe.
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Thursday October 29, 2026
13:15 Opening words (Sari Kivistö, Sami Pihlström, Panu-Matti Pöykkö, Ilja Lehtinen)
13:30 Session I
Ilja Lehtinen: Can we afford the tragic anymore? Towards the apocalyptic
Katariina Numminen: Out of Time. Tragedy, Creativity and Other Anachronisms
15:00 Coffee service
15:30 Session II
Esa Kirkkopelto: Is Your Tragic Suffering Sublime or Cathartic?
Vesa Vahtikari: What is a "Typical" Ancient Greek Tragedy Like?
17:00 Closing the day
Friday October 30, 2026
10:00 Session III
Natan Elgabsi: "Real life is not tragic": Suffering, Narrative Comprehension, and the Psychology of Tragic Reversal
Aaron J. Goldman: The Fool's Two-and-a-Half Faces: The Tragicomic Asymmetry of Christianity and 'Paganism' in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments
11:30 Lunch break
12:45 Session IV
Panu-Matti Pöykkö: Levinas' Spectres
Sari Kivistö: Why Ismene?
14:15 Closing words