28 – 30 May (Wednesday – Friday) 2025
Institute of World Literature SAS + online, in Slovak and English
The conference is organized by the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences as part of the grant project VEGA 2/0127/23 Slovak literature in inter-literary and transcultural contexts.
How can we think about small literatures in the context of world literature? Both terms – “small literature” and “world literature” – are neither self-evident nor agreed upon and already open up a myriad of questions. The conference intends to create space for a productive discussion and polemics about these questions that could open up new ways of thinking about literatures from Central Europe. We are interested in how these literatures communicate with other literatures and create interliterary communities, how they circulate in translation or adapt to the world literary system, how they see their own identity, which literary centres they look to for inspiration or consecration, or whether the term “national literature” is still a useful category. By asking these questions, we want to open up the larger discussion about the relationship between “small literature” and “world literature”, the local and the global, centre and periphery and the national and the postnational.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
WEDNESDAY, May 28
14.00 – 15.30 Book presentation and discussion (SK)
Discussant: Ivona Kollárová (Central Library, SAS)
Dobrota Pucherová (Institute of World Literature SAS), Erika Brtáňová (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS), Anikó Dušíková (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University), David Short
Jozef Ignác Bajza, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences. An edition with commentary of the first Slovak novel. Translated by David Short. Edited by Dobrota Pucherová and Erika Brtáňová. Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment. Liverpool University Press, 2025.
15.30 – 15.45 Coffee break
15.45 – 17.15 Panel 1
Moderator: Dobrota Pucherová (Institute of World Literature SAS)
Szilvia Szarka (Universität Wien):
„Dynamická kulturní paměť: Srovnávací studie překladů Harmonia Caelestis Pétera Esterházyho v odlišných kulturních souvislostech“ (CZ)
Magdalena Garbacik-Balakowicz (Institute for Literary Studies, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence):
“Between local and global: possibilities and limitations of a mesoregional perspective in comparative literary studies” (ENG)
Botond Szemes (Institute for Literary Studies, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence):
“Digital Literary Memory of the Visegrad region. Wikipedia, Wikidata – new aspects for regional literary history” (ENG)
THURSDAY, May 29
09:00 Coffee, tea, snacks
09:15 Introductory remarks
09:30 – 11:30 Book presentation and discussion (ENG)
Moderator: Dobrota Pucherová (Institute of World Literature SAS)
Zoltán Varga and Péter Hajdu (Institute for Literary Studies, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence)
Hungarian Literature as World Literature. Edited by Zoltán Varga and Péter Hajdu. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2025.
11:30 – 11:45 Coffee break
11:45 – 13:00 Panel 2
Moderator: Miloslav Vojtech (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University)
Anikó Dušíková (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University): “Elective Affinities: Recepcia románu Don Quijote v slovenskej literatúre” (SK)
Marta Fülopová (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University): “Ľudovít Štúr a jeho idea svetovej literatúry”
(SK)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Panel 3
Moderator: Marta Fülopová (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University)
Irena Bilinská (Warsaw University): “Samo Chalupka a Andrej Sládkovič v kontexte transkultúrnych kontaktov s európskou literárnou tradíciou“ (SK)
James Partridge (Charles University): “Janko Kráľ and Ján Botto: Slovak romanticism as world literature” (ENG)
John Minahane: “P. O. Hviezdoslav as world author” (ENG)
Miloslav Vojtech (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University): “Ján Hollý, Ján Kollár a Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav v kontexte európskej literatúry“ (SK)
CONFERENCE DINNER
FRIDAY, May 30
09:30 Coffee, tea, snacks
10:00 – 12:00 Panel 4
Moderator: Peter Darovec (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University)
Anna Kobylinska (Warsaw University): “Slovak railway story: Záborský, Banšell, Timrava“ (SK)
Dana Hučková (Institute of Slovak Literature SAS): „Konexie umeleckej sebaidentifikácie slovenských autoriek z prelomu 19. a 20. storočia s transkultúrnym modelom ženskej literárnej emancipácie“ (SK)
Dagmar Kročanová (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University): „Dve tváre modernity: Gejza Vámoš“ (SK)
Marta Součková (Faculty of Arts, University of Presov): Dve podoby lyrizácie v slovenskej medzivojnovej próze: Jozef Cíger Hronský a František Švantner (SK)
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:30 Panel 5
Moderator: Anikó Dušíková (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University)
Peter Darovec (Faculty of Arts, Comenius University): „Ironická subverzia cestovania medzi domácim a cudzím: Pavel Vilikovský a Peter Pišťanek – autori kritickej národnej sebareflexie na prelome 20. a 21. storočia“ (SK)
Mary Orsak (University of Oxford): “Slovak feminist literature as world literature: Irena Brežná, Etela Farkašová, and Jana Juráňová” (ENG)
Dobrota Pucherová (Institute of World Literature SAS): “Slovenské holokaustové memoáre ako svetová literatúra” (SK)
14.30 – 14.45 Coffee break
14.45 – 16.30 Project meeting