International Conference on Gustav Shpet: Universit� Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3

[Peter Steiner]

This pioneering conference, organized by Prof. Maryse Dennes, took place at
 Bordeaux University from November 21 to November 24, 2007. Nearly three
dozen scholars from eight European countries and the USA gathered to discuss
a multitude of topics suggested by the meeting’s title, “Gustav Shpet and
His Heritage: The Russian Sources of Structuralism and Semiotics.”

Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (1879-1937), the author of numerous books and
articles on historiography, hermeneutics, poetics, aesthetics and
linguistics, to mention just the most important fields of his expertise, is
justly recognized as one of the most seminal figures of  Russian
intellectual life in the decades preceding and following the Bolshevik
revolution of 1917. His scholarly career brought him into contact with such
luminaries as Georgii Chelpanov, Edmund Husserl, and Roman Jakobson, but was
terminated prematurely in 1929 when he was dismissed from his academic
position for ideological reasons. For the next six years Shpet, not allowed
to publish under his own name, worked as a translator rendering into Russian
such western classics as The Pickwick Club and The Phenomenology of Spirit.
The final blow fell in 1935 when he was exiled to the Siberian city of Tomsk
where two years later in a secret trial he was sentenced to death and executed.

The Bordeaux meeting pursued several agendas: to bring to the fore hitherto
unknown materials about Shpet’s life and work, to contextualize his role
within Russian intellectual history, and above all to assess the vitality of
his ideas for contemporary psychology, linguistics, and philosophy. More
than sixty papers delivered in Russian, French and English (for the full
list see http://www.msha.fr/cercs/Colloque-Chpet/ChpetProg.pdf) elicited
stimulating discussions among the participants from a variety of academic
disciplines. Equally seminal were convivial conversations which took place
in the couloirs of Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine and over the
meals generously provided by the organizers on and off the campus of
Bordeaux University. The signal value of this conference does not rest
merely in disseminating the hitherto neglected ideas of Gustav Shpet but
also in illustrating the richness of the Russian intellectual past and how
many treasures remain hidden. The forthcoming publication of the proceedings
in the journals Slavica occitania and Voprosy filosofii promises to be one
of the most important scholarly events of 2008. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 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/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------