The Night as a Private Space
The Night as a Private Space:
Darkness, Secrecy, and Shadows in the Early Modern Period and Today
An interdisciplinary conference at the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen organized in collaboration with Institut für Dänisch, Europa-Universität Flensburg
On 11-12 December 2025, PRIVACY will host an interdisciplinary conference on “The Night as a Private Space”.
Through 19 presentations, the event will address questions such as: How does the night impact privacy? Which activities and creative potentials become available and/or acceptable under the cover of nocturnal darkness? Is the night more private than the day? And, last but not least, how have these dynamics changed from the early modern period until today?
Investigating the early modern night as a private space, we hope to generate reflections about late capitalist society, where technological developments have entailed a fundamental reconfiguration of privacy and the night.
The event is designed, organised, and hosted by PRIVACY scholar Bastian Felter Vaucanson in collaboration with Markus Floris Christensen, Europa-Universität Flensburg.
Participation is free but registration is required via this link.
Programme
Thursday 11 December
| 8.30–9.00 | Arrival and registration (with coffee and croissants) | |
| 9.00–9.15 |
Introduction |
Bastian Felter Vaucanson and Markus Floris Christensen |
|
9.15–10.45 |
Panel 1: Literary Representations of Nocturnal Privacy |
Debapriya Basu (Indian Technical Institute): ”Lady Winchilsea’s Malady: The Politics of Insomnia in the Poetry of Anne Finch (1661–1720)” Markus Floris Christensen (Uni. Flensburg): ”’Alone I Sat in the Midnight Hour’: Night and Privacy in Danish Literary Romanticism” Johan Klingborg (Uni. California Berkeley): ”Reading and Writing on the Night Shift” |
|
10.45–11.00 |
Break | |
|
11.00–12.00 |
Panel 2: Colonial Nightscapes |
Adrian van der Velde (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology): “‘In a Decent But Private Manner’: Nocturnal Penetralia in the Early Modern Caribbean” Bastian Felter Vaucanson (Uni. Copenhagen): ”Reconciling the Private and the Professional: Nocturnal Modalities of Religion and Labor in the 18th-Century Danish Caribbean” |
|
12.00–13.00 |
Lunch break |
|
|
13.00–13.30 |
Transportation to Christian’s Church |
|
|
13.30–15.00 |
Panel 3 (In Christian’s Church): The Materiality of the Early Modern Night |
Illaria Hoppe (Catholic Private University Linz): ”The bed as a private space at night? Approaches to a physical sphere in the early modern period” Vitus Huber (Univ. Fribourg): ”’…and so to bed.’ Lived Spaces and Intimate Practices of the Night in Early Modern Diaries” Hui-Yi Yang (Royal Danish Academy and Uni. Copenhagen): ”Privacy and Darkness in the bed box of Rembrandt’s House” |
|
15.00–15.15 |
Break with snacks and coffee |
|
|
15.15–16.30 |
Artistic contributions |
First performance of Necropastorale by Jesper Moeslund SEND IN THE BOUFFONS! by Pleasure Punch Collective |
|
19.00–22.00 |
Conference dinner |
Friday 12 December
|
8.00–8.30 |
Morning coffee |
|
|
8.30–10.00 |
Panel 4: Cosmological Darkness and Existential Intimacy |
Aksel Haaning (Uni. Roskilde): ”The Wake Up at Midnight” Søren Frank Jensen (Uni. Hamburg): ”The Subterranean Night in Early Modern Devotional Mining Literature” Reto Rössler (Uni. Flensburg): ”Dark Sides of the Enlightened Cosmos. From Jean Paul’s Cosmic Dreams to August Klingemann’s Night Watches of Bonaventura” |
|
10.00–10.15 |
Break |
|
|
10.15–11.45 |
Panel 5: Early Modern Devotional Practices in the Dark Hours |
Jan Temme de Vries (Univ. Basel): ”The Legacy of Two Bachs in Denmark Exemplified in Their Devotional and Private Night Songs” Naomi Makowska (Queen’s University, Ontario): ”Navigating the Dark: The City, Body and Magic in Seventeenth-Century Modena” Suzanne Scanlan (Trinity College): ”When the Devil Comes to Call: Nocturnal Temptation in the Early Modern Convent” |
|
11.45–12.45 |
Break | |
|
12.45–13.45 |
Panel 6: Early Modern Domestic Spaces at Night |
Ulrik Langen (Copenhagen): ”Borgertid and the Struggle over Nighttime Disturbances in Eighteenth-Century Copenhagen” Joanne Begiato (University of the Arts, London): ”‘at late hours and in remote or private and lurking places’: Privacy and the senses at night in English adultery cases” |
|
13.45–14.00 |
Break | |
|
14.00–15.30 |
Panel 7: Exploring the Urban Night in the 21st Century |
Jess Reia (Uni. Virginia): ”From Electrification to Prediction: The Ambivalence of Privacy in the Urban Night” Claire Downey (Uni. Limerick): ”A room of one’s own: How darkness and light delineate private space in the urban night” Radka Stahr (Charles University Prague): ”Colonizing the Night: Artificial Light and the Nocturnal City in Scandinavian Literature” |
|
15.30–15.45 |
Summing up |
Bastian Felter Vaucanson and Markus Floris Christensen |
| 16.30–17.30 |
City walk in Christianshavn (voluntary) |
With local historian Anders Bjørn |
|
21.00–? |
Embodied exploration of the Copenhagen nightscape at Babylon nightclub (voluntary) |