Thursday, January 12, 2023

Scholarship opportunities for intensive language study through Arizona State University’s Critical Languages Institute

 

Scholarship opportunities for intensive language study through Arizona State University’s Critical Languages Institute. 

In the summer of 2023, the Critical Languages Institute (CLI) at Arizona State University will offer intensive training in 14 less-commonly-taught languages: Albanian, Armenian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Kazakh, Macedonian, Persian, Polish, Russian, Tatar, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Uzbek. 

Government agencies, businesses and humanitarian and development organizations with international missions, all value language skills and cross-cultural experience among employees.  Relevant language training also strengthens applications for Fulbright, Boren, and other fellowships for research or fieldwork support. 

Classes at ASU’s CLI meet for four hours a day, 5 days a week and students earn from 8 to 13 transferable credit hours. Experienced native-speaker faculty, small class sizes, and a focus on communication all play a role in fostering student success; OPI exit testing has demonstrated that participants make substantial gains in comprehension and fluency. 

Thanks to a range of financial awards including FLAS and Project GO scholarships, Title VIII fellowships, and private named scholarships, CLI makes intensive language study and study abroad accessible to participants of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. In 2022, over 70% of CLI students received some level of need-based or merit-based funding. 

For more details or to apply, please visit https://melikian.asu.edu/cli.  The site also includes information about upcoming presentations by CLI staff on the program.   

OR Scan the QR code to go directly to the Critical Languages Institute website.

851 S Cady Mall, Durham Hall #250 

PO Box 874202, Tempe, AZ 85287-4202 

Tel.: 480-965-4188 Fax: 480-965-1700 

melikiancenter@asu.edu | https://melikian.asu.edu 


Sunday, October 23, 2022

AIESEE National Committee of the Republic of North Macedonia - XIII Congress of South-East European Studies

 ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE D'ETUDES DU SUD-EST EUROPEEN

 

AIESEE National Committee of the Republic of North Macedonia 

 

XIIIth Congress of South-East European Studies 

 

Skopje, 28.09.2022 

 

Dear Colleagues,

 

We were kindly asked by the AIESEE Secretariat to inform you that the XIIIth Congress of South-East European Studies on the topic: “Communication and Exchange: South-Eastern Europe within Global Social, Political and Cultural Processes” will be held in 2024, instead of 2023. 

The congress will be held in Skopje, from 15 to 19 September 2024, in the premises of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The official working languages of the 13th AIESEE Congress are English and French.

Members and associates of the national AIESEE committees are invited to the congress, as well as other researchers interested in the proposed topic, and young researchers and PhD students. Please, send the titles and abstracts of your contributions, including a short CV, to the following address congress2023aiesee@manu.edu.mk by 1 October 2023. Please indicate the session of the congress in which you wish to participate. The organizers will notify you whether your proposal has been accepted not later than 1 November 2023.

            Enclosed you will find the 20 sessions of the congress and some additional information about the congress registration.

 

            Sincerely,

 

            Acad. Dragi Gjorgiev

 

            President

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XIIIth Congress of South-East European Studies 

 

Communication and Exchange: 

South-Eastern Europe within Global Social, Political and Cultural Processes

Skopje, 15-19 September 2024

 

Sessions

1.     Cultural exchange from the antiquity and middle ages up to modern times

2.     Transport communications through the history

3.     Economic relations and trade exchange 

4.     Science and knowledge exchange in the South-Eastern Europe

5.     Role of emigrants in establishing social, political and cultural links 

6.     Intelligentsia and academic elite in/from South-Eastern Europe

7.     Literary and translation production in the transfer of knowledge and ideas

8.     Linguistic interferences in/with South-Eastern Europe

9.     Exchange of ideas between national movements in the South-Eastern Europe and beyond

10.  Identity in South-Eastern Europe in historical retrospective

11.  Concepts of violence in the social, political and cultural processes

12.  Ways and methods of knowledge distribution

13.  Interactions and contradictions between science and religions 

14.  Scientific exchange and institutional building in South-Eastern Europe

15.  Communication and exchange through visualisation: archives, museums, photography, cinematography, print in South-Eastern Europe

16.  Historiography and memory in the social and cultural processes of South-Eastern Europe

17.  Knowledge transfer through traveling: the role of voyagers, ambassadors and missionaries in global communication

18.  Role of women in the cultural and academic processes in South-Eastern Europe

19.  Diaspora communities in/from South-Eastern Europe

20.  Religious networks – historical discourse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Registration fee

 

The amount of the registration fee varies according to the date of the payment: 

-       85 EUR by 15 January 2024; 

-       105 EUR by 28 February 2024; 

-       125 EUR from 1 March 2024 till the beginning of the Congress. 

 

PhD students providing supporting documents have special fee rates: 

-       45 EUR by 15 January 2024; 

-       55 EUR by 28 February 2024; 

-       65 EUR from 1 March 2024 till the beginning of the Congress. 

 

The registration fees payment details, as well as other information related to the congress will be available on the congress website: http://manu.edu.mk/congress/.

For additional information you can contact Mr. Goce Aleksoski from the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, on email: goce@manu.edu.mk

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

  

SEESA TRAVEL GRANTS


To support graduate student scholarship and international participation in the field of Southeast European Studies, the Southeast European Studies Association (SEESA) has established the SEESA Travel Grants to subsidize travel costs for the presentation of papers at international, national, regional, or state conferences. In 2023, the grants will be awarded to graduate and undergraduate students for presentation of work on topics related to Southeast European Studies at conferences in any field – including, but not limited to, history, linguistics, literature, anthropology, the arts, social and political science, and folklore.

SEESA plans to fund, on a competitive basis, at least 2 awards of $500 each.

Applicants must be undergraduate or graduate students in Southeast European Studies or a related field.

Students may receive only one SEESA Graduate Student Travel Grant over the course of their studies.

Applicants should submit an abstract of the paper of no fewer than 500 words, proof that the abstract has been accepted, a C.V., a short bibliography of their paper, and proof of student status as an email attachment to Bavjola Shatro [seesa.travel.grants@gmail.com]. Author name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information should be provided below the title of the paper.

Applicants who cannot submit proof of acceptance of their abstracts by March 10th because the conference where they plan to present has later deadlines for sending acceptance notifications, should contact SEESA’s Committee for Travel Grants at the email address given above before submitting their application in order to be given the necessary instructions to complete and submit their application for the SEESA Travel Grants.

The applications will be evaluated by SEESA’s Committee for Travel Grants. The quality of writing of the abstract as well as its content will be considered.

Questions about the grants may be directed to Bavjola Shatro.

Application Submission Deadline: March 10, 2023

Acceptance Notification Date: March 30, 2023


Monday, August 8, 2022

Religion and Human Rights in Post-Communism

 Special issue of Religions

 

The collapse of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union ushered in a complete overhaul of life in those countries. Self-declared atheistic regimes made way to incipient democracies that have struggled not only to accommodate diversity in all its forms, including freedom of religion, but also to recognize and respect the fundamental human rights of all citizens. The link between organized religion and human rights has been examined in-depth in some countries and areas of life more than in others, leading to a patchy/ inconsistent understanding of post-communist developments regarding religion and human rights. This is the reason why we are seeking contributions that would shed new light on neglected aspects of religion and human rights in post-communist countries.

 

Contributions can investigate one country, event, right or several. They can be case or comparative studies in nature, relying on theoretical and methodological perspectives drawn from disciplines like history, political science, religious studies, sociology, anthropology, and interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approaches. Manuscripts, up to 8,000 words in length, will undergo a double-blind peer-review process before being accepted for publication.

 

Contributors should signal their interest in participating in this special issue of Religions by sending a 500-word abstract and a short bio to the co-editors of the special issue by October 1, 2022. The deadline for submitting the manuscript is March 1, 2023. We anticipate that peer-reviewing will take up to two months. Publication of the special issue is scheduled for June 1, 2023.

 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

 

Dr. Lavinia Stan (Istan@stfx.ca) & Dr. Ines Muzaku (Ines.Murzaku@shu.edu)

Guest Editors

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

SEESA PRIZE 2022

 

SEESA PRIZE:  22TH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE ON BALKAN AND SOUTH SLAVIC LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE & FOLKLORE

 

There have been awarded the prizes for the best papers authored by students who presented at the 22nd Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore, which took place at The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, USA, on April 7-10, 2022.

The winner of the First Prize, SEESA 2022 is: Ms. Rexhina Ndoci, Phd Student,
 Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University.

The Second Prize is awarded to Mr. Clayton Marr, PhD student in Linguistics, The Ohio State University.

On behalf of SEESA, the Committee for the SEESA Prize 2022 congratulates the awardees on their achievement.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Call for Contributions

 

 


Récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est/

Women’s Life Writing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe/

Literatură auto/biografică feminină în Europa de Est şi de Sud-Est

 

Call for Papers

In the form of memoirs, autobiographies, diaries or correspondence, or given a literary spin as autofiction and biofiction, the experiences of East and South-East European women during wartimes and under the oppressive regimes of the twentieth century (a period laden with contrasts, which in the West was hailed as “a century of women”, Rowbotham 1997, but also framed as an “age of testimony”, Felman and Laub 1992) have been surfacing in the past two decades. The transmission of these narratives followed sinuous paths, taking both verbal and non-verbal forms, relying on both “filial” and “affiliative” networks (Hirsch 2012), and coming from both female victims and female perpetrators (Schwab 2010). If deciphering most of what came to light requires the careful eye of a literary or cultural studies scholar, the broad perspective of a historian, or the attentive ear of a psychoanalyst, some phenomena of resurfacing bring back not only traumatic legacies, but also extremist ones, pushing towards repeating a history of perpetrations (Pető 2020), a concerning tendency which calls for a political scientist’s perspective.

The persistence of women’s psychic wounds, passed on through “postmemory” (Hirsch 1997 & 2012) has generated  “haunting legacies” (Schwab 2010) as it shaped the next generation’s unconscious reflexes, and has found a forceful outlet in works of life writing coming either from second-generation witnesses or from the publication of previously censored works by victims of totalitarian regimes. The transmission of these narratives happened against the backdrop of an uneven social progress, which created gender gaps and accentuated women’s vulnerabilities, despite the presence of emancipation movements, which received official support from some political regimes.  

This issue will look at how traumatic memories (lived, inherited, or transmitted) are transformed through the aesthetic agency of literature (sometimes with additional support from photography or visual art), thus building a safe space where the revisiting of the past allows room for both reflection and learning. The volume focuses on a triad of aspects of life writing: witnessing (following distinctions made by Derrida and Agamben, and recently refined by van der Heiden 2019, between the Latin testis, superstes, martyr – derived from the Greek martus – and auctor), enduring (which brings together suffering and duration or survival), and recovering (connoting healing in the intransitive form, but also rescuing or preserving in the transitive). We also want to take into account the influence of censorship and self-censorship on the process of witnessing and the way “missing memory” (Schwartz, Weller, and Winkel, 2021) finds a compensation in fictional forms of life-writing. Contributions should cover the large life writing spectrum (biographical and autobiographical narratives, memoirs, diaries, letters, biofiction, or autofiction), including posthumously published or retrospectively written accounts.

The memory of past trauma or past guilt seeped in through gestures, images, whispers, storytelling, silences. Life writing (broadly conceived to include photography, correspondence, and archival material) has offered the main  instrument to access, reassemble, and give meaning to these traces of history. Deciphering the “communicative legacies of trauma and resilience” (Hannah Klieger, in Mitroiu 2018), the relationship between memory and history (Radstone and Hodgkin 2003), but also between witnessing and literature (Felman and Laub 1992, van der Heiden 2019), are some of our main goals for this special issue. The impact of local context on form (Mrozik & Tippner 2021) has modelled the categories of life writing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, providing a vantage point for formulating new theories on the development of genre. We too are very interested in highlighting the local and regional background and the specificity of these political, social and cultural environments, with their impact on women’s life-writing.

We invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to:

§  The value of testimony, persistence, and survival in women’s life writing and of life-based literary narratives (biofictions and autofictions) as related to historical traumas;

§  The role of literature, but also hybrid genres (life writing accounts including photography and visual art) in recovering Eastern and South-Eastern European female experiences of the twentieth century and in recording the postmemory of these experiences in contemporary times;

§  Politics, women’s emancipation movements and their backlashes: 19th century origins, Marxism and the Cold War.

§  The involvement of women from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in political movements (leftist or rightist adherence, even extremist groups) and, if the case, the resulting traumatic repression as it is portrayed in various media.

§  The impact of the World Wars and the Cold War as well as communist/fascist repression and censorship on the evolution of women’s life writing and memory preservation;

§  The body as site of trauma, recovery, and witnessing in women’s life writing that reflects the historical atrocities of the twentieth century;

§  The transition from suffering witness (martus) to storytelling witness (auctor) in women’s life writing;

§  Establishing transnational connections and routes of memory within Eastern and South-Eastern European women’s life writing;

§  The conflicted identities of descendants and / or close friends of victims but also of perpetrators of historical trauma.

 

Please submit your proposals to the editors as follows:

Proposals on Romanian life-writing, Cold War and totalitarian contexts: Dr. Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu, Lecturer, andrada.pintilescu@fspac.ro

Proposals on Biofiction and Autofiction, Postmemory: Laura Cernat, PhD candidate, cernat.laura@kuleuven.be

Proposals on South-East European and Eastern European literature:  Dr. Bavjola Shatro Gami, Associate Professor- bgami@kent.edu

Deadlines for submissions: ABSTRACTS  (around 300 words): February 10, 2022.

FULL PAPERS (around 8000-9000 words): June 30, 2022.

 

Bibliography:

Felman, Shoshana, and Laub, Dori. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York & London: Routledge, 1992.

Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

Mitroiu, Simona (ed.). Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe. Cham: Palgrave, 2018.

Mrozik, Agnieszka, and Tippner, Anja. “Remembering Late Socialism in Autobiographical Novels and Autofictions from Central and Eastern Europe: Introduction”. European Journal of Life Writing. Vol 10, 2021, pp. 1-14.

Pető, Andrea. The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War. Cham: Palgrave, 2020.

Radstone, Susannah, and Hodgkin, Katharine. Regimes of Memory. London & New York: Routledge, 2003.

Rowbotham, Sheila. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. London: Viking, 1997.

Schwab, Gabrielle. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Schwartz, Matthias, Weller, Nina, and Winkel, Heike. After Memory: World War II in Contemporary Eastern European Literatures. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.

Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony. New York: SUNY Press, 2019.

 

 


 

Récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est/

Women’s Life Writing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe/

Literatură auto/biografică feminină în Europa de Est şi de Sud-Est

 

Appel à contributions

Soit sous la forme de mémoires, d’autobiographies, de journaux ou de volumes de correspondance, soit recevant une tournure littéraire en tant qu’autofiction et biofiction, les expériences des femmes de l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est en temps de guerre ou pendant les régimes oppressifs du vingtième siècle (période pleine de contrastes, ayant été célébrée comme « un siècle des femmes » dans l’Occident – Rowbotham 1997, mais aussi présentée comme un « âge du témoignage » - Felman and Laub 1992) n'ont cessé d'émerger durant les deux dernières décennies. La transmission de ces récits a suivi des voies sinueuses, prenant des formes parfois verbales et parfois non-verbales, soutenue autant par des réseaux « filiaux » que par des réseaux « affiliatifs » (Hirsch 2012) et provenant tant du côté des femmes victimisées que de celui des femmes coupables d’atrocités (Schwab 2010). Si l’interprétation des documents qui sont parus récemment dans ce domaine serait une tâche pour l’œil soigneux du spécialiste en littérature ou de l’expert en études culturelles, entrainant également la perspective vaste de l’historien ou peut-être l’oreille attentive du psychanalyste, il existe également des phénomènes de réémergence qui réaniment non seulement la mémoire culturelle traumatique, mais également un héritage extrémiste, engendrant la tendance de répéter des violences historiques (Pető 2020), une évolution inquiétante dont l’analyse réclame une expertise en sciences politiques.  

La rémanence des blessures psychiques que les femmes ont transmises à leurs proches à travers la « post-mémoire » (Hirsch 1997 & 2012) a généré des « héritages obsédants » (« haunting legacies », Schwab 2010), structurant les réflexes inconscients de la génération suivante. De telles expériences traumatisantes, soit héritées soit vécues, ont trouvé un exutoire puissant dans l’écriture de témoignage pratiquée par la génération des enfants des victimes ou dans la publication des ouvrages autobiographiques ou biographiques émanant directement des victimes des régimes totalitaires et à l’époque censurés. La transmission de ces récits s’est passée dans le contexte d’un progrès social inégalement réparti, qui a créé des disparités de genre et a accentué la vulnérabilité des femmes, malgré l’existence de mouvements d’émancipation, qui ont, pour certains d'entre eux, bénéficié du soutien officiel des régimes politiques.

Ce numéro thématique se penchera sur la manière dont les souvenirs traumatisants (soient-ils vécus, hérités, ou transmis) sont transformés par l’agencement esthétique propre à la littérature (parfois aidée par la photographie ou l’art visuel), afin de construire une zone neutre où la reconsidération du passé donne lieu à la réflexion et, par la même occasion, à l’apprentissage. Le volume se concentre sur une triade d’aspects de l’écriture de vie : témoigner (suivant les distinctions, théorisées par Derrida et Agamben, et récemment affinées par van der Heiden 2019, entre les termes latins testis, superstes, martyr (dérivé du grecque martus), et auctor), survivre (survivre à une expérience traumatisante, donc souffrir, mais aussi résister, durer), et rétablir (connotant une guérison dans sa forme réflexive, mais aussi l’effort de récupérer ou de préserver la vérité du passé, dans sa forme transitive). Nous voudrions tenir compte également de l’influence de la censure et de l’autocensure dans le processus de témoignage et de la manière dont la « mémoire manquante » (« missing memory », Schwartz, Weller et Winkel 2021) trouve une compensation dans les modalités fictionnelles de l’écriture de vie. Les contributeurs sont encouragés à couvrir l’ensemble de formes de l’écriture de vie (des récits biographiques et autobiographiques, mémoires, journaux, correspondance, biofiction ou autofiction), y compris des récits publiés à titre posthume ou écrits en rétrospective.

Le souvenir des expériences traumatisantes passées ou d’une culpabilité traumatisante s’infiltre à travers des gestes, des images, des murmures, des histoires, des silences. Les récits de vie (conçus plus généralement comme l’ensemble de techniques de sauvegarde de la mémoire, dont font partie la photographie, la correspondance, les matériaux d’archive) ont fourni l’outil principal pour accéder à ces traces de l’histoire, les rassembler et leur donner du sens. Déchiffrer les « héritages communicationnels du traumatisme et de la résilience » (« communicative legacies of trauma and resilience », Hannah Klieger, dans Mitroiu 2018), ainsi que la relation entre la mémoire et l’histoire (Radstone et Hodgkin 2003), mais également entre le témoignage et la littérature (Felman et Laub 1992, van der Heiden 2019), figurent parmi les objectifs principaux de ce numéro thématique. L’impact du contexte local sur l’aspect formel de l’écriture (Mrozik & Tippner 2012) a modelé les catégories du récit de vie en Europe de l’Est, offrant un nouvel angle pour formuler des théories innovatrices sur le développement du genre. Nous cherchons également des articles qui mettent l’accent sur le contexte local et régional et sur la spécificité de ces milieux politiques, sociaux, et culturels, dans la mesure où ils influencent le récit de vie féminin.

Nous invitons des contributions sur des thèmes liés au récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est, parmi lesquels nous recommandons :

§  La valeur du témoignage, de la persévérance et de la survie dans les récits de vie écrits par des femmes ou dans la littérature féminine inspirée par la vie réelle (biofiction ou autofiction) dans leur rapport avec les expériences historiques traumatisantes ;

§  Le rôle que la littérature, mais aussi les genres hybrides (les récits de vie dans leur ensemble, y compris sous la forme de la photographie ou de l’art visuel), jouent dans le rétablissement / la récupération des expériences féminines du vingtième siècle dans l’Europe de l’Est et l’impact de ces pratiques sur l’inscription de la post-mémoire de ces expériences dans l’archive contemporaine ;

§  La scène politique, les mouvements d’émancipation et leurs contrecoups : les origines de ces tendances dans le dix-neuvième siècle, notamment les discussions sur l’héritage du marxisme pendant la Guerre Froide ;

§  L’implication des femmes de l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est dans des mouvements politiques (de gauche ou de droite, y compris les adhésions à des groupes extrémistes) et, selon le cas, la répression traumatisante qui s'en est suivie, telle qu’elle est dépeinte dans les différents médias.

§  L’impact des Guerres Mondiales, de la Guerre Froide, de la répression ainsi que de la censure communiste ou fasciste sur l’évolution des récits de vie féminins et sur la conservation de la mémoire collective féminine ;

§  Le corps comme lieu de l’expérience traumatisantes, du rétablissement et du témoignage dans le récit de vie féminin qui relate les atrocités historiques du vingtième siècle ;

§  Le passage du rôle du témoin souffrant (martus) à celui du témoin racontant (auctor) dans le récit de vie féminin ;

§  Les connections transnationales et les routes de la mémoire à travers le récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est ;

§  Les identités conflictuelles des descendants et/ou des proches des victimes, mais également des descendants et des proches des femmes coupables d’atrocités historiques.

Veuillez remettre vos propositions aux éditeurs selon les catégories suivantes :

Les propositions concernant le récit de vie en Roumanie, l’expérience de la Guerre Froide, et les contextes totalitaires : Dr. Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu, chargée de cours, andrada.pintilescu@fspac.ro

Les propositions sur la biofiction, l’autofiction, et la post-mémoire: Laura Cernat, doctorante, cernat.laura@kuleuven.be

Les propositions concernant la littérature de l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est: Dr. Bavjola Shatro, conférencière - shatro.uamd.edu@gmail.com

Date limite pour remettre les propositions (environ 300 mots): 10 février 2022.

Date limite pour la remise des contributions (environ 8000-9000 mots): 30 juin 2022.

 

Bibliographie:

Felman, Shoshana, and Laub, Dori. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York & London: Routledge, 1992.

Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

Mitroiu, Simona (ed.). Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe. Cham: Palgrave, 2018.

Mrozik, Agnieszka, and Tippner, Anja. “Remembering Late Socialism in Autobiographical Novels and Autofictions from Central and Eastern Europe: Introduction”. European Journal of Life Writing. Vol 10, 2021, pp. 1-14.

Pető, Andrea. The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War. Cham: Palgrave, 2020.

Radstone, Susannah, and Hodgkin, Katharine. Regimes of Memory. London & New York: Routledge, 2003.

Rowbotham, Sheila. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. London: Viking, 1997.

Schwab, Gabrielle. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Schwartz, Matthias, Weller, Nina, and Winkel, Heike. After Memory: World War II in Contemporary Eastern European Literatures. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.

Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony. New York: SUNY Press, 2019.

 

 


 

 

Literatură auto/biografică feminină în Europa de Est şi de Sud-Est

Women’s Life Writing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe/

Récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est/

 

Apel la contribuţii

Fie că a luat forma memoriilor, autobiografiilor, jurnalelor sau coresponţei ori a îmbrăcat forme ficţionalizate (autoficţiune ori bioficţiune), experienţa feminină din perioada războaielor mondiale şi a regimurilor opresive din secolul XX în spaţiul est şi sud-est european a ieşit la suprafaţă şi s-a impus în peisajul editorial al ultimelor două decenii. O perioadă a contrastelor pe planul emancipării, secolul XX a fost celebrat în Occident ca un „secol feminin” („a century of women”, Rowbotham 1997), dar în acelaşi timp a fost considerat o „eră a mărturiilor” („age of testimony”, Felman & Laub 1992). Transmiterea istoriilor personale din această epocă a urmat trasee sinuoase, în forme orale sau scrise, bazându-se pe reţele „filiale”şi „afiliative” (Hirsch 2012), venind atât de la victimele feminine ale diferitelor regimuri opresive cât şi de la alte figuri (în special feminine) care au dus mai departe mărturia victimelor directe (Schwab 2010).  În cursul descifrării acestor istorii personale publicate în ultimele decenii (şi prezentând interes pentru multiple discipline, de la studiile literare şi cele culturale la istorie sau psihanaliză) iese la lumină nu doar memoria culturală traumatică, ci şi, în egală măsură, o conservare şi reemergenţă a extremismului. În unele contexte, aceasta din urmă a putut da naştere unei tendinţe de a repeta violenţe istorice (Pető 2020), o direcţie îngrijorătoare care solicită o perspectivă politologică specializată.

Persistenţa unor traume, transmise apropiaţilor acestor figuri feminine prin ceea ce se numeşte „post-memorie” (Hirsch 1997 & 2012) a generat  „reminiscenţe obsedante” („haunting legacies” (Schwab 2010), transmiţând reflexe inconştiente noii generaţii. Aceste experienţe traumatice, trăite sau moştenite, s-au manifestat cu forţă în scriitura de tip memorialistic sau auto/biografic a generației care a preluat amintirile traumatizante, precum și în scriitura confesivă a victimelor însele, anterior cenzurată de regimurile totalitare. Transmiterea memoriei reprimate s-a produs în contextul unui progres social inegal, care a creat disparităţi de gen şi a accentuat vulnerabilităţile feminine, în ciuda existenţei unor mişcări de emancipare care au primit sprijin oficial din partea unora dintre aceste regimuri. 

Acest număr tematic are în vedere felul în care memoria traumatică (a experienţelor trăite, moştenite sau transmise) este transformată prin influenţa estetică a literaturii (uneori şi prin mijlocirea unor elemente vizuale, fotografie sau arte plastice), construind un spaţiu securizant în care revizitarea trecutului e un prilej de reflecţie şi învăţare. Volumul se concentrează pe o triadă care caracterizează scriitura auto/biografică: mărturia (urmând distincţiile făcute de Derrida şi Agamben şi nuanţate mai recent de van der Heiden, 2019, între testis, superstes, martyr, derivat la rândul său din grecescul martus –  şi auctor), rezistenţa (care concentrează suferinţa, durata, dar şi supravieţuirea) şi recuperarea (având conotaţii terapeutice în formă reflexivă, dar şi de salvare sau conservare în formă tranzitivă). Dorim să luăm în considerare influenţa cenzurii şi auto-cenzurii asupra procesului prin care această mărturie se transmite şi asupra modului în care „memoria absentă” (missing memory, Schwartz, Weller, & Winkel, 2021) e compensată de formele ficţionale ale scriiturii memorialistice (conţinute de termenul-umbrelă de life-writing). Contribuţiile autorilor interesaţi de acest număr pot acoperi un spectru larg de genuri şi subgenuri (biografii şi autobiografii, memorii, jurnale, scrisori, bioficţiune sau autoficţiune), incluzând texte publicate postum sau scrise retrospectiv.

Rememorarea traumelor  sau a vinovăţiei se manifestă în gesturi, imagini, naraţiune sau chiar în ceea ce rămâne nespus. Literatura auto/biografică (life-writing, unde includem şi materiale de arhivă, fotografice şi corespondenţă) a oferit un instrument major de acces, reansamblare şi conferire de sens acestor istorii în spaţiul Istoriei.  Numărul e interesat de descifrarea „reminiscenţelor comunicative ale traumei şi rezistenţei” (communicative legacies of trauma and resilience, Hannah Klieger, în Mitroiu 2018), relaţia dintre memorie şi istorie (Radstone & Hodgkin 2003), dar şi dintre mărturie şi literatură (Felman & Laub 1992, van der Heiden 2019). Impactul contextului local asupra formei (Mrozik & Tippner 2021) a modelat categoriile subsumate life-writing-ului, oferind un nou unghi pentru formularea teoriilor inovatoare asupra dezvoltării genului. Ne interesează articole care să pună accentul pe contextul local şi regional dar şi pe specificul mediului politic, social şi cultural care au influenţat literatura auto/biografică feminină.

Vă invităm să trimiteţi articole legate de următoarele teme şi nu numai:

§  Valoarea mărturiei, rezistenţei şi supravieţuirii în  literatura auto/biografică feminină, bioficţiune şi autoficţiune în relaţie cu traume istorice.

 

§  Rolul literaturii, dar şi al genurilor hibride (relatări auto/biografice incluzând fotografia şi artele vizuale), în recuperarea experienţelor feminine est-europene în secolul XX, dar şi în practici de post-memorie în documentele contemporane.

 

§  Politică, mişcări de emancipare şi retrograde: origini în cadrul secolului al XIX-lea. Marxismul şi Războiul Rece.

 

§  Implicarea femeilor din estul şi sud-estul Europei în mişcările politice (de dreapta sau stânga, incluzând aderenţa la grupările extremiste) şi, unde a fost cazul, reprimarea şi trauma care au rezultat din acestea, aşa cum apar prezentate în diverse medii artistice.

 

§  Impactul celor Două Războaie Mondiale şi al Războiului Rece precum şi al represiunii şi cenzurii comuniste şi fasciste asupra evoluţiei genului auto/biografic şi chestiunii memoriei.

 

§  Corpul ca spaţiu de manifestare al traumei, recuperării şi mărturiei în scriitura auto/biografică, reflectând atrocităţile secolului XX.

 

§  Tranziţia de la martor afectat de evenimente (martus) la martor ca autor al relatării (auctor) în scriitura auto/biografică.

 

§  Stabilirea de conexiuni şi trasee transnaţionale ale memoriei în scriitura auto/biografică feminină est şi sud-est europeană.

 

§  Identităţi conflictuale ale descendenţilor şi apropiaţilor victimelor, dar şi ale celor care au perpetuat trauma istorică

Contribuţiile pot fi trimise pe adresele editorilor acestui număr tematic după cum urmează:

§  Teme de literatură română, Război Rece şi regimuri totalitare. Lect. dr. Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu, andrada.pintilescu@fspac.ro

§  Teme de bioficţiune, autoficţiune şi post-memorie: Drd. Laura Cernat, cernat.laura@kuleuven.be

§  Teme de literatură est şi sud-est europeană: Conf. Dr. Bavjola Shatro, shatro.uamd.edu@gmail.com

Termene-limită:

§  Rezumate (aprox. 300 de cuvinte):  10 februarie 2022.

§  Lucrări acceptate (8000-9000 cuvinte): 30 iunie 2022.

Bibliografie:

Felman, Shoshana, and Laub, Dori. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York & London: Routledge, 1992.

Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

Mitroiu, Simona (ed.). Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe. Cham: Palgrave, 2018.

Mrozik, Agnieszka, and Tippner, Anja. “Remembering Late Socialism in Autobiographical Novels and Autofictions from Central and Eastern Europe: Introduction”. European Journal of Life Writing. Vol 10, 2021, pp. 1-14.

Pető, Andrea. The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War. Cham: Palgrave, 2020.

Radstone, Susannah, and Hodgkin, Katharine. Regimes of Memory. London & New York: Routledge, 2003.

Rowbotham, Sheila. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. London: Viking, 1997.

Schwab, Gabrielle. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Schwartz, Matthias, Weller, Nina, and Winkel, Heike. After Memory: World War II in Contemporary Eastern European Literatures. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.

Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony. New York: SUNY Press, 2019.