CALL FOR PAPERS - Contemporary Russian Poetry Symposium

[Dunja Popovic]

CALL FOR PAPERS
“At the Edge of Heaven: Russian Poetry Since 1970”A Graduate Student 
Symposium with a Panel of Guest Scholars
Princeton University
December 3, 2005

This symposium will address the challenges facing scholars of contemporary 
Russian poetry and explore the potential for innovative thinking that 
accompanies inquiry into a new field. The participants may wish to 
consider one of the following topics, although contributions dealing with 
other pertinent questions are welcome:

- The role of Postmodernism in contemporary Russian poetry. To what extent 
can the term “postmodern” be applied to all Russian poetry since the 
1970s? Do some types of contemporary Russian poetry resist that 
designation? 

- Women’s voices in contemporary Russian poetry. Is the work of women 
poets necessarily different than that of male poets? If so, how? Do 
different women poets’ contributions to Russian poetry comprise a 
unified “voice” or are they unified arbitrarily by their authors’ gender?

- Role of free verse in contemporary Russian poetry. What is the place of 
free verse poetry in Russia’s contemporary poetic practice? Are there 
different “schools” of free verse, or are the kinds of free verse as 
different as the poets who write in this form? What are the unifying 
characteristics of this “form,” if they do in fact exist? 

- New poetry and new values. How have the changing values and social 
structure of post-Soviet Russia affected the form of poetry, as well as 
the role of poetry (and of the poet) in society? Is this discernibly 
reflected in contemporary poetry? How?

- Innovative approaches to studying contemporary poetry. What can 
quantitative, cognitive, and Western theory-inspired approaches bring to 
the study of contemporary Russian poetry? 

The symposium will not include papers dealing exclusively with issues of 
translation.

Abstracts of papers must be submitted by September 15, 2005. Final copies 
of papers, not to exceed 7000 words, must be submitted by participants 
whose proposals are accepted by November 1, 2005. All the papers will be 
circulated among the 10 participants in the symposium before the meeting 
itself. The symposium will involve round-table paper discussions, prefaced 
by a five-minute introduction by the author, rather than featuring formal 
presentations. In addition to graduate students, the symposium will 
include Stephanie Sandler, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures 
at Harvard University, and Gerald Janacek, Professor of Russian at the 
University of Kentucky, both of whom have worked extensively on 
contemporary Russian poets. The organizers will provide a travel stipend 
and accommodations for all the participants.

Please email abstracts to Dunja Popovic at dpopovic at princeton.edu or to 
Sarah Dunn at sdunn at princeton.edu. Alternatively, hard-copy versions may 
be sent to:

At the Edge of Heaven – Abstracts
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Princeton University
249 East Pyne
Princeton, NJ 08544

For more information, please consult the symposium webpage: 
http://www.princeton.edu/~dunn/Edge_of_Heaven.htm

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