Online lecture – Heritage and humiliation

Join us on the sixth session of the “Critical heritage studies at Arqus: concepts, approaches and findings” online guest lecture series, titled “Heritage and humiliation”, with Katarzyna Liszka (University of Wrocław). The online lecture will take place on 22 January 2026 at 18:00 CET. Moderated by Bruno Tiago de Jesus Madeira from the University of Minho.

Heritage and humiliation enter into a variety of relations that are of fundamental significance, although they are rarely articulated explicitly. Katarzyna Liszka, the speaker, suggests that three fundamental areas can be distinguished in this relation.

1. The role of collective humiliation from the past, such as humiliation produced by war, genocide, slavery, and colonialism in the formation of heritage, 
2. The importance of everyday, seemingly insignificant forms of humiliation experienced by different groups in the past and in the present, and their impact on how heritage is shaped. 
3. The view of heritage itself as a set of cultural practices that may either strengthen or weaken forms of humiliation, whether inherited from the past or produced in the present.

An important context for this contribution is what may be described as “the return of humiliation and shame” to everyday politics and social life. As many researchers have noted, contemporary political actors increasingly instrumentalise citizens’ histories, offering remedies for experiences of humiliation and for pressing, painful shame.

Drawing on her work on humiliation and on the ethics of avoiding humiliation, Katarzyna Liszka sketches a few points that help to find one’s way within the complex territory of humiliation. These points are intended as a conceptual toolkit that may be useful for heritage studies in reflecting on how heritage practices relate to experiences of humiliation.

About the speaker

Katarzyna Liszka is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland.

Her academic work lies at the intersection of cultural studies, philosophy, and ethics, with previous research that focuses on the ethics of memory and the notion of non-consensual dialogue. Currently, she is engaged in a research project devoted to the phenomenon of humiliation.