Call for papers: Polish-Belarusian literary encounters (ASEEES 2013)

[Curt Woolhiser]

Dear SEELANGers,

I am helping some colleagues from Belarus and Poland organize a panel
at ASEEES in Boston with a focus on Polish-Belarusian literary
relations from the 19th to 21st centuries, tentatively entitled “The
Intimate Other: Polish-Belarusian Literary Encounters.” Here is a
brief description of the panel topic:

The prominent Polish émigré writer, editor and political activist
Jerzy Giedroyc, himself a native of Minsk, described his place of
birth as part of a region where “questions of identity are better
answered by three-volume novels than a passport.” The theme of complex
and fluid identities in the region is also addressed by the writer and
director Tadeusz Konwicki, a native of the Belarusian-Lithuanian
borderland, who wrote: “What language did I speak as a child? Did I
speak the ‘simple language’? Did I hear more words, fairy tales and
songs in Belarusian or in Polish? How many times and when did I cross
that imperceptible boundary between Belarusianness and Polishness?”
	For this panel we invite papers examining representations of
Belarusians and “Belarusianness” and their relationship to Poles and
“Polishness” in the works of Polish-language writers from the
territory of today’s Belarus and the Belarusian-Lithuanian borderlands
(Adam Mickiewicz, Wladyslaw Syrokomla, Jan Barszczewski, Eliza
Orzeszkowa, Czeslaw Milosz, Tadeusz Konwicki, etc.), as well as the
works of Belarusian-language writers who emerged from a Polish
cultural milieu (Jan Czeczot, Wincenty Dunin-Marcinkiewicz, Franciszek
Bohuszewicz, etc.), and more recently, Belarusian-language writers in
post-WWII Poland (Sokrat Janowicz, etc.).
	If you are interested in participating as either a panelist or
discussant, please contact Curt Woolhiser at cwoolhis at brandeis.edu by
January 2, 2013.

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