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

[Alex Spektor]

oh no!  not another pandora's box.  maybe we should quickly return to kurva,
shliuha and svat'ia baba babariha while there's still time.  Although I doubt
there is...




Quoting Olga Meerson <meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU>:

> What is wrong with masochistic fascination?
>
> The only problem with it seems to be that for its proponents it works as
> an explanation of other things, while for its opponents, it explains
> nothing about the human soul but rather, is something that itself needs
> to be explained. The clasim that certain types of narratives resort to
> the discourse of pain BECAUSE people are prone to masochism is a bit
> tautological. The question is, why are we prone to masochism--the
> question, and not the answer. "The alleged masochistic fascination"
> presupposes that people who use the discourse of pain like pain in a
> sensual way--to put it bluntly, that Russians love to talk about
> suffering because they "love to suffer". But what if suffering is a
> means to an end and not an end in itself? Masoch does not address this
> problem, or at least his ideological followers do not care about it.
>
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
>
> > 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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