Conference: The Pain of Words: Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures (May 9-11, 2008, Princeton)

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

29 October 2007

Dear Colleagues,

The Program Committee wrote:

>We especially encourage submissions that approach concrete textual or
>ethnographic materials in a theoretically informed way, without reiterating
>the alleged masochistic fascination of Slavic cultures with pain and
>suffering.
>

I have some questions:

1) What "alleged masochistic fascination" are we referring to here?
2) What is wrong with "masochistic fascination?"
3) What is wrong with masochism generally?
4) How is it even possible to study "pain" in the Slavic cultural 
context without at least mentioning masochism?
5) Why would there be any problem with studying "masochistic 
fascination" in a "theoretically informed way?"  Are only certain 
theories permitted?
6) Why would one want to pre-censor the content of an upcoming conference?

With regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Emeritus Professor of Russian
University of California, Davis



Elena Gapova wrote:

>Conference: The Pain of Words: Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures
>(May 9-11, 2007, Princeton)
>Call for Conference Papers
>THE PAIN OF WORDS:
>
>Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures
>
>Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
>
>Princeton University
>
>May 9-11, 2008
>
>
>Recent studies of emotions have pointed to a particular role of pain in
>shaping identities and narratives. Regardless of their disciplinary
>affiliations, scholars seem to agree that verbal expressions of pain first
>of all draw attention to the suffering individual instead of describing the
>actual experience of pain. Narratives of suffering provide the individual
>with a powerful symbolic presence. They create emotionally charged
>communities. Such narratives also lay the foundation for larger social,
>political or moral claims.
>
>This link between pain, representation, and subjectivity is well documented
>in Slavic cultures, where vivid depictions of suffering saturate popular and
>elite cultures alike.  As the young Mayakovski put it, "I am with pain,
>everywhere." However, this conference wants to move beyond the documenting
>of omnipresence of pain in Slavic cultures. Instead, we want to explore how
>social, linguistic, aesthetic, moral, gender, etc. conventions determine
>specific contents of pain in different historical periods and different
>geographical locations. What are the symbolic contexts in which experiences
>of pain are recognized? To what extent do available cultural practices
>constrain or encourage certain narrative versions of pain? What gets lost in
>the process of translating traumatic experience into narratives of
>suffering? How is the phenomenon of pain used to galvanize individual and
>group identities, to justify social values, to motivate artistic projects
>or, in some cases, to undermine (or generate) political movements? In short,
>what are those discourses through which Slavic cultures acquire and express
>their concepts of pain?
>
>We seek to address these problems by bringing together an interdisciplinary
>and international group of people interested in exploring the value of pain
>in such diverse fields as history, literature, film, music, performing arts,
>everyday life, religion, ideology, politics, law, psychology, and history of
>medicine. We invite papers to reflect upon the diverse vocabulary of
>expressions of pain that have been constructed across Slavic space and time.
>We are also interested in comparative studies that could place Slavic
>narratives of suffering in larger cultural, historical, or geographical
>contexts.
>
>We especially encourage submissions that approach concrete textual or
>ethnographic materials in a theoretically informed way, without reiterating
>the alleged masochistic fascination of Slavic cultures with pain and
>suffering.
>
>Please send your abstract (300 words) and CV to <oushakin at princeton.edu> by
>February 1, 2008.
>
>We might be able to offer a limited number of travel subsidies for several
>foreign presenters.
>Finalists will be contacted in the middle of February, 2008.
>
>
>
>Program committee:
>
>
>
>Serguei Oushakine (Princeton), Devin Fore (Princeton), Petre Petrov
>(Princeton),
>
>Alexander Etkind (Cambridge/Princeton), Nancy Ries (Institute for Advanced
>Study).
>
>http://slavic.princeton.edu/events/calendar/detail.php?ID=1628
>
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