Emma Holten & Morten Pape - The Vulnerable Man

DON'T FEAR THE WEIRD FESTIVAL AND NØRREBRO THEATRE PRESENTS EMMA HOLTEN AND MORTEN PAPE: THE VULNERABLE HUMAN

We live in a society that celebrates the strong and successful individual, but what does that mean for our relationship with vulnerability, care and community?

Authors Morten Pape and Emma Holten meet with moderator Iben Maria Zeuthen in a conversation about how we measure a person's worth.

About experiences of being a child of the underclass and mental illness -- and of being physically affected and losing your footing. About which lives we give space and value, and which are at risk of being overlooked. And about why vulnerability is not an individual problem, but a common concern that concerns us all.



Emma Holten is a debater and author of the book Deficit (2024). She has given numerous keynote lectures in Europe and the United States, and also lectures at educational institutions, in organizations and companies.

She has been a member of the Expert Forum of the European Institute for Gender Equality as an expert on feminist economics and is a member of the Advisory Committee on Women's Rights at Human Rights Watch. In 2023, she was appointed as an adviser to the government's exercise of power plan.

Morten Pape is a writer and screenwriter. In 2015 he made his debut with The Plan, an autofictive novel about his own upbringing in Urbanplan at Amager. He has since published the award-winning novels God's Best Children (2019) and In Ruins (2022). Together they form the so-called Amager trilogy, in which Pape examines how environment, inheritance and choice shape the conditions of human life. In his more recent family trilogy, he turns his gaze to the stories of his parents and grandparents. Key Child (2024) and its sequel Moonchild (2025) explore the scars of generations of love, failure and violence.

Iben Maria Zeuthen is a journalist and radio presenter particularly known for her portrait programmes. She often has a focus on existence, faith, inequality and climate in her programmes, which she has made for, among others, DR P1, RADIO IIII and the traditional Radio24SYV.



The talk is presented in collaboration with Don't Fear the Weird Festival 2026, which Psych Info Region Hovedstaden is behind.