Conference 2015. Theorizing Myth, Trauma and Memory in Central and East European Cultural Spaces, Lovran, Croatia

 

International conference
Theorizing Myth, Trauma and Memory in Central and East European Cultural Spaces
(24. – 27. 9. 2015., Lovran, Croatia)

The purpose of this three-day meeting is to provide a platform for showcasing current research among scholars whose academic work is involved with the correlations between (post)memory, myth and trauma in literature, art, and popular culture in the countries of former Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia. Special attention will be given to the comparative analysis of Central- and East-European contexts.

In the last two decades memory and trauma studies have become a vibrant field of analysis in literary, cultural and media studies, ethnology, anthropology, history, and sociology. The aim of this meeting is to give closer attention to the cultural and geographical specifities in the abovementioned European regions in regards to the fact that collective catastrophes were followed by repeated shifts in public memories of the past that were used to secure public articulation of the past. Debates about the „state-sponsored“ memory often confronted the traumatic aspects of that past. This conference seeks to illuminate various aspects of the role of memory – political, cultural, historical, and sociological – in Central and East European geographies in 20th and 21st centuries.

Possible paper topics include:

1. Memory and history in the Other Europe

How are events being transmuted into history, and than transmitted and reconstructed in collective and individual memories? To which extent do strategies of representation of individual memory confront the political, and how does the dialogue between individual memory and historical frames of reference gain its visibility in literature, art, and popular culture? Can trauma discourse be regarded as a privileged cultural field that gives us an insight into the witness’ attempts to negotiate memory and history?

2. Trauma and testimony before and after the Wall

What are the dominant genres and institutions of remembrance? What are the primary agents and idioms of remembrance, and of the transmission of trauma? Do visual images (by their ability to produce affect, and not only represent memory) illuminate new aspects of memory by exposing the limits of literary language in its aim to serve as the privileged medium for the transmission of trauma?

3. Myth and testimony

To which extent does testimony, as a speech act par excellence, „perform“ the subject and also the witness’ memory? Does this performative aspect of testimony bring its authenticity into question? If political myths, as R. Barthes argued (1957), remove history from the language, to which extent do political myths, as a second-order semiotic system, reduce individual memories to similarity? How do different interpretations of political myths (natural or parasitical on language) influence testimonies of witnesses? How do testimonies negotiate political myths in order to reconstruct the language in a non-mythical way? To which extent do intellectual and public debates about the ethics and the aesthetics of survivor testimonies also reflect the shifts in the public memory about the past?

4. The Future of (Post)Memory in Central and East European Cultural Spaces

How is „received“ memory being transmitted by „vicarious witnessing“ of a „second generation“ of authors? How do transnational factors (mass migrations, travel culture, global economy) affect the way one remembers certain historical events? How does (post)memory shape the future of an individual or of a group?

Organizers:
Danijela Lugarić, PhD, Institute of Literary Studies, University of Zagreb
Molnár Gábor Tamás, PhD, Institute of Hungarian Literature and Cultural Studies, ELTE, Budapest

Proposals for papers are welcome. Abstracts of 300–400 words and a short CV (100 words) should be submitted to dlugaric@ffzg.hr by1st May 2015. Languages of the conference will be English and German.