Narratives of the Present in Post-Totalitarian Societies (international conference)
September 17-18, 2015, Transilvania University of Brașov

 

Transilvania University’s Department of Literature and Cultural Studies (Faculty of Letters), together with the Romanian Association of General and Comparative Literature (ALGCR) welcome paper and session proposals for its upcoming third international conference to be held in Brașov in September 2015.

We seek analyses and explorations dealing with the way in which cultural communities make sense of the past and the present, of the past in the light of the present and of present realities threadingon the past, especially but not exclusively in the context of the post-totalitarian transition in Eastern Europe. We are welcoming attempts to interpret and understand, in contemporary contexts: national mythologies, fabricated local histories, manifestations of Protochronism, or manipulations of various religious traditions. We are also interested in the way in which new possible multicultural and multinational cultures of dialogue may nowadays interweave.

 

Suggested areas of investigation

– the history of ideas

– interpretations of everyday life

– conscious and unconscious reconstructions of past worldviews

– legitimation through the past

– nationalisms and regressive utopias

– fictional histories, meta-histories, counterfactual discourses, alternative presents

– collaborative historicities and confabulations

– multiethnic, multinational patrimony

– insistence on constructing and reconstructing cultural canons

– the extinction and survival of cultural and political institutions

– the social status of the author in post-totalitarian societies

– recoveries of hidden/lost literatures

– contemporary metanarratives and ideologies

– contemporary fairy-tales and urban legends

– reconfigurations concerning the texture of the present

 

Programme

The full programme of papers, abstracts and speakers will be available soon.

 

Registration & Fee

Please e-mail a 300-word abstract and your affiliation by September 1, 2015 to the following address: narratives2015@gmail.com.

All submissions should include:

– a title

– a short summary of up to 300 characters (including spaces)

– an abstract of no more than 300 words

– your name, institution and email contact

The conference fee is €35, payable at the registration desk. The fee will cover meals and refreshments. The papers will be published in an indexed conference proceedings.