Please forward: Final CfP Bruno Schulz Conference

[Kris Van Heuckelom]

- Final Call for Papers -

Deadline for submissions: November 30, 2006

International Conference "The World of Bruno Schulz / Bruno Schulz and the 
World: Influences, Similarities, Reception" (Leuven, May 25-26, 2007)

http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/slavic/schulz/

The Research Unit of Slavonic and East European Studies at the Katholieke 
Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), the Department of Slavonic and East European 
Studies at the Universiteit Gent (Belgium), and the Section of Slavic 
Languages and Literatures at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) are 
pleased to announce the International Conference "The World of Bruno 
Schulz/Bruno Schulz and the World: Influences, Similarities, Reception". The 
Conference will take place on the Faculty of Arts campus in Leuven, Belgium, 
May 25-26, 2007.

Confirmed keynote speakers include:

David A. GOLDFARB (Columbia University, USA). "Defunct Taxonomies: Bruno 
Schulz's Aviary"
Alfred SPROEDE (Universität Münster, Germany). "Bruno Schulz: Between 
Avant-Garde and Hasidic Redemption"
Michal Pawel MARKOWSKI (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Poland). "Text and 
Theater. The Ironic Imagination of Bruno Schulz"

As Stanislaw Eile (1996) has argued, the difficulty with Bruno Schulz's 
prose is that "the extensive use of figurative language renders the message 
rather confusing and consequently open to a variety of esoteric readings, 
which often demonstrate the inventiveness of critics rather than 
representing a convincing explication of the text". According to Krzysztof 
Stala (1993), too many critics limit themselves to "some fragmentary, 
marginal reading, being rather aware of the inexhaustibleness of Schulz's 
prose than trying to define this inexhaustibleness, domesticate it with some 
proposal richer than 'expression of the inexpressible'". Because of the 
difficulty to find a stable interpretative horizon in Schulz's texts 
themselves, it has been a popular critical strategy to compare his confusing 
literary output to an ever increasing number of well- and less-known writers 
and literary trends. It remains unclear, however, to which extent this 
profusion of comparisons has lead to a better understanding of Schulz's 
literary world. If Schulz is comparable to almost any modern writer, what is 
then still so special about his writings?

The aim of the conference is to explore the limits of the comparability of 
Schulz's works. We welcome contributions from a variety of methodological 
approaches and on any topic relating to this problem. Papers dealing also 
with Schulz's graphic and epistolary output are strongly encouraged. 
Possible topics include: influences (direct and indirect influences on 
Schulz's writings; Schulz's influence on contemporary literature, theatre, 
film, plastic arts, etc.), similarities (typological similarities between 
Schulz's and other authors' writings; intertextuality and its limits; 
precipitate associations which turn out to be exaggerated upon closer 
examination, etc.), reception (critical reception of Schulz's writings 
throughout the world; Schulz's position in a certain national tradition; 
problems connected with translating Schulz; misunderstandings due to 
mistranslations, etc.) 'Forgotten' names, trends and traditions include: 
(German or Polish) periodicals, series and publications of a pornographic or 
esoteric nature, Polish authors (J. Slowacki, Z. Krasinski, B. Lesmian, 
etc.), the literature of the Dual Monarchy (A. Kubin, R.M. Rilke, and many 
others writing in German, Yiddish or Czech from Drohobycz or the rest of 
Galicia, Prague or Vienna, etc.), European authors (Th. Mann, J.K. Huysmans, 
J.P. Jacobsen, etc.), Russian authors (19th-century writers from N. Gogol to 
A. Chekhov, etc.)

Each paper will be allowed twenty minutes. Discussions at the end of each 
session will be introduced by specialized discussants, who are expected to 
assess each paper in advance and to critically summarize its main arguments. 
The ulterior aim of the conference is a book publication. One page abstracts 
are expected by November 30, 2006. Notifications of the Organizing Committee's 
decisions will be sent out by January 2007. Papers accepted for the 
conference have to be submitted one month in advance in order to allow 
discussants to prepare their contribution.

Presentations preferably are in English, in order to open the conference up 
to researchers working mainly on other national literatures. Exceptions will 
be made for those speakers who feel more comfortable when speaking in 
Polish. In order to facilitate selection, assessment, and publication of the 
papers, however, all proposals, abstracts and papers should be in English. 
We strongly encourage the use of modern presentation software, e.g. 
Powerpoint. The goal of this is to enhance the effectiveness of the 
presentation and to facilitate discussion afterwards. Laptops and beamers 
will be provided.

For details or questions, please contact the members of the Organizing 
Committee: Kris Van Heuckelom (kris.vanheuckelom at arts.kuleuven.be) or Dieter 
De Bruyn (dieter.debruyn at ugent.be).

Scientific Committee:

Wlodzimierz Bolecki (Polska Akademia Nauk, Poland)
Dieter De Bruyn (Universiteit Gent, Belgium)
Rolf Fieguth (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Jerzy Jarzebski (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Poland)
Arent van Nieukerken (Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Uniwersytet 
Warszawski, Poland)
Bozena Shallcross (University of Chicago, USA)
Marek Tomaszewski (Université Charles de Gaulle Lille III, France)
Kris Van Heuckelom (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)
Dorota Walczak-Delanois (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)


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