On 10–12 September 2025, the international academic conference The Culture of Attractions: Past and Present will take place at the Faculty of Humanities, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, organized by the Research Group “Performance Studies and Drama Translation” (Collegium Maius, Fosa Staromiejska 3, Toruń).
The conference will bring together scholars from Poland and abroad working in cultural studies, performance studies, theatre studies, media studies, film studies, anthropology, and related disciplines. Its aim is to reflect collectively on the phenomenon of the culture of attractions—understood broadly as visual and performative practices that, in different historical periods, employed technologies to generate effects of illusion, simulation, wonder, or cognitive shock.
Keynote lectures will be delivered by distinguished international guests:
Nele Wynants (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Louder, Brighter, Stranger: Theatricality, Competition, and the Culture of Attractions on the Nineteenth-Century Fairground
Cariad Astles (University of London, United Kingdom) – Fascination, Revulsion, Attraction and Difference: the Representation of Diverse Bodies Within Popular Entertainment
About the keynote speakers:
Cariad Astles is a puppetry trainer, teacher, researcher, director, and performer. She teaches puppetry at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and has also lectured at the University of Exeter, the University of Grenoble, the University of Chile, Plymouth Marjon University, and the University of Stockholm. She has led puppetry projects worldwide, including in China, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, and Chile. Currently, she works on the international project The Herds in Stockholm, training young puppeteers. She is co-president of the UNIMA Commission on Professional Training and Research, former Vice President of UNIMA, and co-editor of Women in Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations (Routledge). She has published widely on puppetry theory and practice.
Nele Wynants is an art and theatre scholar at the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on the entangled histories of performance, media, and science. She is a member of the Young Academy of Belgium and co-directs the B-magic research project on the history of the magic lantern in Belgium. In 2023, she received the prestigious ERC Starting Grant for the project Science at the Fair: Performing Knowledge and Technology in Western Europe, 1850–1914. She is also editor-in-chief of FORUM+ for research and arts. Her work combines academic research with cultural heritage initiatives and artistic-research practices.
The detailed conference programme includes eight thematic sessions and a closing seminar led by Prof. Erkki Huhtamo (UCLA, USA). Presentations and discussions will address, among other topics, historical and contemporary fairground spectacles, the intersections of science, technology, and art, the continuity of media practices, forgotten phenomena and figures, as well as contemporary forms of the culture of attractions found in cinema, theatre, digital games, and the metaverse.
Conference languages: Polish and English
Venue: Collegium Maius, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Rooms 307 and 311
Contact: cultureofattractions@gmail.com