Vitality, organicism, and life in literature and literary theory — in the 20th century and beyond.
Location: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem (ELTE), Budapest, Múzeum körút 4/a, 1088.
Date: October 9-10, 2025.
Schedule
October 9 / First Day
Opening remarks by the organizers (9:30–9:45)
First panel (9:45–11:45)
Chair: Zoltán Kulcsár-Szabó
Tatjana Jukić: Deleuze on Parthenogenesis, or an Austro-Hungarian Imperative
Hajnalka Halász: Das Leben unterschreiben. Autobiographische Spuren bei Nietzsche und Lőrinc Szabó
Jelena Spreicer: Organizität im Modus der Negation: Degenerative Lebensformen und posthumaner Stillstand in Christoph Ransmayrs Morbus Kitahara (1995)
Csongor Lőrincz: Theorie der Wahrnehmung bei Melchior Palágyi
Lunch Break (12:00–1:30)
Second panel (1:30–3:30)
Chair: Danijela Lugarić
Marijan Bobinac: Scholle, Trieb, Volk. Zum biologistisch-organizistischem Lebensmodell im Dramenwerk Karl Schönherrs
László Bengi: The Re-arrangement of the Living in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice
Maja Zorica: What Are Monsters Made of? Anne Carson’s Red and Red Doc
Richárd Vincze: How to Address a Cat: Zoopoetics, Addressability, and Agency in T.S. Eliot’s The Ad-dressing of Cats
Coffee & Networking (3:30–4:00)
Third panel (4:00–6:00)
Chair: Attila Simon
Danijela Lugarić: Physiognomy of Words. On the Use of Memory for Life: Chagin by E. Vodolazkin
Róbert Smid: Tracing the Island’s Organic Inscription: Insular Accumulation and Dissemination
Ágnes Balajthy: (Ex)changing life in Dezső Kosztolányi’s Kornél Esti
Gábor Tamás Molnár: Vitality, Technology, and Poetry in Gaston Bachelard’s Writings on Fire
October 10 / Second Day
Fourth panel (10:00–12:00)
Chair: Marijan Bobinac
Zoltán Kulcsár-Szabó: Naturgeschichte bei Szilárd Borbély
Milka Car: Vitalismus und Wasserwesen in Jan Wagners Regentonnenvariationen
Gábor Mezei: Movement and Rhythm in the Literary Text
Andrea Urbán: Embodied Birth. Rewriting the Sacred Maternal Body in Poems by William Butler Yeats, Sylvia Plath and Zsuzsa Takács
Lunch Break (12:00–1:30)
Fifth panel (1:30–3:30)
Chair: Csongor Lőrincz
Dubravka Zima: Vitalism and anti-modernism: poetics and politics in the work of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić
Davor Beganović: Between State of Emergence and “Barbarogenius”. How Carl Schmitts Theory Reflects in the Work of Zenit and Ljubomir Micić
Tamás Lénárt: Von literarischer Schatzkiste zur illustrierten Fotografie. Erfassung der Natur in der illustrierten Zeitschrift Vasárnapi Ujság
Zrinka Božić: New Man for a New Age
Coffee & Networking
Sixth panel (4:00–6:00)
Chair: Tatjana Jukić
Marina Protrka Štimec: Petrica Kerempuh: Transforming Dionysian Power into Artistic Expression
Attila Simon: Biopoetik und Biopolitik in Sándor Márais Roman Frieden in Ithaka
Irina Wutsdorff: The Anthropological Dimension in the Theories of Prague Structuralism
Máté Bordás: The Vitality of Metaphor in Ágnes Nemes Nagy’s Poetry
Closing remarks
