Activities of the Institute

The New Imagined Communities: Identity Build up in Eastern and South Eastern Europe

Institute of World Literature of Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

and

ICLA Research Committee on Eastern and South Eastern Europe

present the conference

The “New Imagined Communities”: Identity Build up in Eastern and South Eastern Europe

Veda-Malé kongresové centrum SAV

Štefánikova 3

Bratislava 1

In the era of globalism and of the European integration, identity build up is at stake and new disciplines are getting involved in this area, challenging comparative literature and cultural studies. Emerging as both a research and a curricular object, the European studies display an interdisciplinary and trans-methodological drive.

The conference aims at focusing on the epistemological and the methodological turns in approaching cultural identity and at unveiling the landmarks (topographical, historical, ideological, symbolic etc.) that underline the different and yet converging identity projects in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, as well as in the Central Europe.

The comparative literature has a rich tradition in Slovak literary studies. This is one of the reasons, why the conference will be working with the concept of the “communities”, the notion introduced in the comparative literary studies in 80` by the well known Slovak comparatist Dionýz Ďurišin.

The languages of the conference will be English and French.

Sub-topics:

Round table: The European Republic of Letters

"European Republic of Letters" (Franco Moretti and Pascale Casanova) as an epistemological metaphor and as a methodological device – be it called European, universal or world literature.

Conceptual landmarks:

- Spatial landmarks (symbolic geopolitics; space and landscape)

- Natural and made up borders (religion, ethnicity, language, mentalitites, culture)

- Temporal landmarks (imagining the past; national grand narratives)

- Ideological landmarks (stigmatising Oneself and the Other)

Post-imperial and post-comunist Eastern Europe.

On the border of mighty empires: Imperial Russia/ The Soviet Union, the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Habsburg Empire

Globalism and East european identity build up:

Europe versus Europes? (Re)inventing Europe within the EU.

Programme Outline

14th May, 2009

9.30 – 12.30

9.30 – 10.30 Registration, welcome

Notions and Methods

10.30 – 10.50 Róbert Gáfrik: Ďurišin’s concept of Interliterary Communities and the Contemporary Debate on Cultural Identity 11.00 – 11.20 Ivo Pospíšil: The Problem  of Terminology, Methodology and Axiology: Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), East-Central Europe (Ostmitteleuropa), East and South-East Europe 11.30 – 11.50 Vladimir Biti: The Cosmopolitan Literary Imperative 12.00 – 12.20 Monica Spiridon: Mapping Europe. (Interdisciplinary Encounters)

Lunch Break

13.30 – 18.00 Round Table The European Republic of Letters

13.30 – 13.50 Jola Skulj: Cultural Realities in View of Dialogism and Narrative Identity 14.00 – 14.20 Zoran Milutinović: The Construction of Europe in Serbian Culture 1913 -1945 14.30 – 14.50 Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser: European Cultural Concept from the Perspective of its Periphery 15.00 – 15.20 Guido J. Snel: Transnationalism as a Realm of Liberation and as a Prison Space

Coffee Break

16.00 – 16.20 Roumiana L. Stantcheva: Migration et identité de l’artiste contemporain 17.00 – 17.20 Katarína Bednárová: Paysage littéraire européen/mondial construit ou déconstruit? 17.30 – 17.50 Dušan Živković: The Relations between The East and The West throughout the Novel ’The White Fortress’ Written by Orhan Pamuk

15th May, 2009

9.00 – 18.00 Globalism and East-European Identity Build-up

9.00 – 9.20 Alexander Kiossev: New Nationalism(s) and „Europes: in the Post- Accession Condition. The Bulgarian Case. 9.30 – 9.50 Vladimír Svatoň: Conflicting Search for National Identity 10.00 – 10.20 Mária Bátorová: On the Acceptance of Singular Identities and European Identity 10.30 – 10.50 Václav Ježek: Identity Crisis and Identity Formation in the Context of the Greek-Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in Eastern Slovakia.

Coffee Break

11.30 – 12.50 Conceptual Landmarks

11.30 – 11.50 Péter Hajdu: Ethnicism, Land, and City 12.00 – 12.20 Dagmar Roberts: Picturesque, Powerful and Primitive (On Slovak National Identity in the Inter-bellum Period) 12.30 – 12.50 Ana Martinoska: The Presence of the Past: The Myth of Alexander the Great in the Macedonian Literature

Lunch Break

14.00 – 18.20 Conceptual Landmarks

14.00 – 14.20 Jale Parla: Reconsiderations of the Ottoman Past in Literary and Other Discourses 14.30 – 14.50 Nevena Daković: Literature in Cinema: Mythical History 15.00 – 15.20 Jana Dudková: Self-Colonization, Urbicid and Vampirism: Some Questions about the Representations of Balkan after 1989 16.00 – 16.20 František Šístek: Union or Occupation? Competing Narratives of 1918 and Identity Construction in Montenegro 17.00 – 17.20 Stijn Vervaet: The Representation of the Past and the Construction of Cultural Memory in Contemporary Bosnian prose. 17.30 – 17.50 Michael Mueller: About the Rhetorical Dodges that Triggered off the Turn from the Second to the Third Yugoslavia 18.00 – 18.20 Libuša Vajdová: Decadence and the Balkans

Place of Conference:

Veda - Malé kongresové centrum SAV Štefánikova 3 81364 Bratislava 1 Tel. (00421-2) 52450153

www.veda.sav.sk/mkc

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