Workshop “Writing Back from the Peripheries? 
Russophone Literary Diversity” 

Program

(All events are held in room 106, Main Library)

Wednesday, July 9th

9:45am-10:00am: Welcoming remarks Nataliya Rulyova (University of Birmingham, UK) and Valeria Sobol (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA) 

10am-12pm 

Panel 1: Empire, decolonization and the Russian literary tradition

Chair: David Cooper (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

  1. Diego Benning Wang (Princeton University, USA): “Lenin Pasha Galloped on His Steed”: Revolution, Nation, and Folklore in Soviet Armenia, 1936-1938
  2. Venya Gushchin (Columbia University, USA): Making Language Poetry De-Colonial: Dordzhi Dzhaldzhireev’s Experiments and Intentions 

Discussant: Isobel Palmer (University of Birmingham)

12pm-1:15pm: Lunch break 

1:15pm-4:15pm

Panel 2: Myth, hybridity, and identity

Chair: Nataliya Rulyova (University of Birmingham)

  1. Aleksandra Khuzina (University of Illinois Chicago, USA): Writing a Hybrid Myth: The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
  2. Elisa Mucciarelli (University of Regensburg, Germany): (De)constructing the Myth. Sukhum/i in the Russian-language Prose of G. Chkvanava
  3. Panayiotis Xenophontos (Oxford University, UK): Personal and national identities in the works of Olena Stiazhkina

Discussant: George Gasyna (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

4:30pm-6pm
Keynote lecture:

Naomi Caffee (Reed College, USA)

The Problem of pis'mennost': Russophone Literary Diversity between Inscription, Extraction, and Erasure.

Thursday, July 10th

10am-11am 

University of Illinois Slavic Reference Service bibliographical session

11:15am-1:15 pm

Panel 3: Geographical and Cultural Peripheries in Theater and Film

Chair: Peter Wright (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

  1. Keenan Shionalyn (The University of Birmingham): Sex and Violence in Leningrad: Queer Temporalities and Historioplasticity in Kuzmin's Post-Revolutionary Dramas
  2. Sergei Motov (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign): Marginalized Blackness in Little Vera 

Discussant: Valeria Sobol (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

1:15pm-2:15pm: Lunch break 

2:30pm-5:30pm

Panel 4: Russophone authors from the peripheries: reinvention of genres and modes

Chair: Valeria Sobol (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

  1. Karina Povsteva (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign): Magical RealismLiterary Techniques in the Creation of the Image of the Caucasus in The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva
  2. Merel De Keyzer (Ghent University, Belgium) : Rewriting a Coming of Age: Mikhail Zakharov’s Doramoroman as an (un)silent Bildungsroman
  3. Olga Kenton (University of Birmingham): Transcending Genres: How Russophone Authors Intermingle Social Media Posts, Journalistic Material, and Documents in Their Narrative.

Discussant: Nataliya Rulyova (University of Birmingham)

5:30pm-6pm: Concluding discussion.

This workshop is held in person and is open to the public, space permitting.

This workshop is made possible by the BiRmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, EnGagement and Education (BRIDGE) seed fund support, as well as co-sponsorships from Russian, East European and Eurasian Center through its US Department of Education Title VI grant funds; the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics; the Slavic Reference Service; and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.