CFP Literary Theatricality: Theatrical Text grad student conference

[Susanna Weygandt]

CALL FOR PAPERS: graduate student conference “Literary Theatricality: Theatrical Text” at Princeton University’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures 

Conference date: October 26 & 27, 2012

Keynote: John MacKay (Yale University)

Convergence between text and dramatic performance can be found in the narrative strategies of some of the most foundational texts of Russian literature. For instance, in Eugene Onegin Pushkin’s narrator shifts between masks, using the disguises to create a plurality of voices throughout the structure of his lyrical stanzas.  In a similar vein, Gogol’s narrators would rely on complex verbal textures borrowed from vocalized turns of speech (skaz). In the 20th century, Silver Age and modernist artists both theorized and explored a synthesis between genres, particularly in the case of dancers who drew on literature as both textual and inspirational sources for their formulations of movement codes. Early Russian film and film theory freely borrowed from theatrical conventions, while Eisenstein and Tynianov regarded film as structurally analogous to a written text. 

This interdisciplinary conference will encourage submissions that explore this crucial trend to consider literature as something performative and to read performance in literary terms. Soliciting papers from our graduate student colleagues at other universities, we hope to tease out one of the most fundamental, but largely overlooked, structural and thematic capabilities of the text in Russian literature.

We hope to bring perspectives together from other fields of language and literature, anthropology, history, gender studies, performing and visual arts, and film and media studies.  

Travel reimbursement and 2 nights of lodging will be provided.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Abstracts are due June 1, 2012.  Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words.  Include paper title, and also a one-page CV.

Please submit abstracts to: princeton.slavic.conference at gmail.com. Please address questions to Susanna Weygandt (weygandt at princeton.edu). 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------