CFP: Dislocating Literature / Baltic Sea Region

[Jenny Willner dislocatingliterature@sh.se]

Symposium at Södertörn University, Centre for Baltic and East European
Studies (CBEES), End of May 2011

Title:
Dislocating Literature. Transnational Literature and the Directions of
Literary Studies in the Baltic Sea Region


Abstract:
We are gathering international scholars to discuss literature that deals
with geographical as well as conceptual border crossings within the Baltic
Sea Region. In the international debate over the last decades, scholars of
postcolonial literature have most often examined the issue of comparison in
relation to history and context. How does literary criticism in the Baltic
Sea Region relate to these debates? Transnational and transregional literary
studies are bound to challenge the idea of cultures, languages and
philologies as closed entities. How does this affect the whole concept of
comparative literature? What happens when we focus on the aspect of trauma
and dislocation in the literature of the Baltic Sea region?

Participants are invited to either present their research on specific
literary works that deal with multilinguality, migration and cultural as
well as personal dislocation, or to contribute to the theoretical debate on
how literary relations in the region can be rethought. As the choice of
subject already suggests, intersections between literature and history will
make up a key aspect of the symposium. Crossing the boundaries between
countries, cultures and languages in this region inevitably involves
crossing the tracks of vikings and tradesmen, smugglers and duty free ships,
politicians and armies, nomads and crusaders, working-class activists and
aristocrats, fascists and communists, esperantists and feminists, refugees
and economic migrants, scholars and artists, diplomats and spies. Any
literary protagonist, author, motif or stylistic device that can be argued
to reflect such modes of movement is of potential relevance for the
discussion. We also welcome destabilizing approaches to literary texts that
have so far been seen in a national or regional context.

An abstract (max. 300 words) and a short cv should be sent to
dislocatingliterature at sh.se no later than December 1st 2010.

Symposium language: English

Preliminary date: The symposium will take place at Södertörn University in
Huddinge, Sweden in May, week 20, 2011, during one full day.

Accomodation for one night and traveling expenses within Europe will be funded. 

For further inquires please turn to dislocatingliterature at sh.se or to one of
the organizers.

Organisation:
Markus Huss, Södertörns högskola/Stockholms universitet
Kaisa Kaakinen, Cornell University/University of Helsinki
Jenny Willner, Freie Universität Berlin

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