... and that rumor says that there's going to be a conference on rumors. At the ifk, they say. In June, it is said. But who knows for sure? Us?!? Not at all! A friend of our uncle’s co-worker  told us, that's all we know! Rumors are situated between truth and lies, knowledge and ignorance, fact and fiction. They lead an ephemeral existence—until they are proven to be true or not, just like this conference. Certain rumors remain persistent, even if they turn out to be false. While their media has changed historically, questions about the power and validity of rumors remain relevant. What used to be referred to as gossip, hearsay or even legend is today often categorized as disinformation or fake news. We’ll discuss all this at this conference that you heard from through the grapevine.
Rumors can be viral and dangerous. They can predict riots, as Gordon Allport and Leo Postman stated: »no riot ever occurs without rumors to incite, accompany, and intensify the violence.« Such things seem to be true of conspiracy plots and alternative facts these days, but there are also theories that claim that rumors actually stabilize society: A way for people to keep things the way they seem.
Will this conference really take place? No one knows for sure!

Participants: Stefan Andriopoulos (Columbia University), Andreas Beyer (Universität Basel), David Coady (University of Tasmania), Silke Felber (Kunstuniversität Linz), Waldemar Isak (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Marius Raab (Technische Hochschule Nürnberg), Sylvia Sasse (Universität Zürich), Marc Siegel (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz), Andrea van der Straeten (Kunstuniversität Linz), Lotte Warnsholdt (Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt), Brigitte Weingart (Universität der Künste Berlin)

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Program

Wednesday, 4 JUNE 2025

13:30 Welcome: Andreas Gehrlach und Thilo Neidhöfer
14:00 Brigitte Weingart: Gerüchte, Klatsch — und Memes
15:00 Sylvia Sasse: Alcoholics, Spies, Pornographers. How Secret Services invented rumours about artists
16:30 Andreas Gehrlach: Mathematik und Mythologie von Gossip und Rumor
17:30 Silke Felber: Speculative Stinking. On Olfactory Rumors

Thursday, 5 JUNE 2025

10:00 David Coady: In Defense of Rumors
11:00 Thilo Neidhöfer: Rumor Control in the US in the 1960s and 1970s
14:00 Waldemar Isak: Gilles Deleuze’ Fingernägel
15:00 Marc Siegel: A Gossip of Images
16:30 Lotte Warnsholdt: Paws, Politics, and Power, or ›The Cat Transformed into a Woman‹
17:30 Thilo Neidhöfer and Andrea van der Straeten: Sind Gerüchte gefährlich?

Friday, 6 JUNE 2025

10:00 Andreas Beyer and Andreas Gehrlach: Anekdoten, Unverbürgtes und Kolportiertes in der Kunst- und Philosophiegeschichte
11:00 Stefan Andriopoulos: The Pope Ass. Rumors, Pamphlets, and Propaganda
12:30 Marius Raab: Lebenswelt und Lebensbewältigung. Ein Blick auf Verschwörungstheorien mit den Theorien der Sozialen Arbeit

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THE CONFERENCE WILL BE HYBRID

To participate via Zoom, you need to register for the meeting with your name and email address. The Zoom link will then be emailed to you immediately. You can register for the individual days via the following links:

Wednesday, 4 JUNE 2025

Thursday, 5 JUNE 2025

Friday, 6 JUNE 2025

To participate in person, no registration is currently required.