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)
- Diego Benning Wang (Princeton University, USA): “Lenin Pasha Galloped on His Steed”: Revolution, Nation, and Folklore in Soviet Armenia, 1936-1938
- 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: Richard Tempest (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
- Aleksandra Khuzina (University of Illinois Chicago, USA): Writing a Hybrid Myth: The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
- Elisa Mucciarelli (University of Regensburg, Germany): (De)constructing the Myth. Sukhum/i in the Russian-language Prose of G. Chkvanava
- 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)
- Keenan Shionalyn (The University of Birmingham): Sex and Violence in Leningrad: Queer Temporalities and Historioplasticity in Kuzmin's Post-Revolutionary Dramas
- 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)
- 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
- Merel De Keyzer (Ghent University, Belgium) : Rewriting a Coming of Age: Mikhail Zakharov’s Doramoroman as an (un)silent Bildungsroman
- 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 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; and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.