What are taboos?

There will be introductions and conversations with Rachael Jolley, editor of the global magazine Index on Censorship, Maria Stepanova, poet and editor of the webzine Colta.ru, Moscow, and Pål Johan Karlsen, author and editor-in-chief of the website Psykologisk.no. Knut Olav Åmås, executive director of the Fritt Ord Foundation, will be the introductory speaker and moderator.

The conversation will be conducted in English and the event is open to the public.

About the event:
Do taboos play an essential role in culture and society, or must we simply get rid of them? Pål Johan Karlsen will speak in defence of the elephant in the room: Why are taboos useful? If we are to co-exist and find inner peace in a dangerous world, we must make space for taboos in our lives. Psychological research may possibly make it easier to understand why taboos arise, and teach us something about how we can challenge them more effectively.

Rachael Jolley recently edited a themed issue on “What’s the Taboo? Why breaking down social barriers matters”; she will present a global survey of taboos and discuss the history of the taboos in certain countries. Why do taboos lead to censorship?

Maria Stepanova will focus on taboos in Russia, paying special attention to “government-inspired” taboos that were virtually non-existent until a few years ago, but which are now shaped and encouraged by propaganda. She will also discuss the tabooisation of historic knowledge: Certain topics and facts are ignored, denied or powerfully rejected by different social classes, from the authorities to the intelligentsia – what impact does this have on the current political situation?

Biographies:

Pål Johan Karlsen, author with a PhD in Psychology. He is editor of Psykologisk.no. He has written ‘Psykologi i et nøtteskall’, and the newly released the novel ’The stormwater drains in Canberra’. A coming-of-age story metamorphoses into a global sexual odyssey.

Rachael Jolley is the editor of the global quarterly Index on Censorship magazine, which has published journalism and fiction from around the world since 1972. She regularly writes for on national and international media as a commentator including for the New Statesman, Huffington Post and Slate, among others. Guest appearances on BBC Radio 4, 5 and BBC TV News, Sky, Al Jazeera. She also co-wrote the play Murdering the Truth.

Maria Stepanova is a russian poet, essayist, editor/journalist. She is a recipient of several Russian and international literary awards. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages. Stepanova is the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent online crowd-sourced journal COLTA.RU. Colta. ru is a magazine which covers cultural, social and political reality of the contemporary Russia.