Given the diversity of the political systems in the geographical area in question, situated between Germany and Russia and stretching from the Balkans to the Nordic countries, it is clear that these two aspects of avant-garde have seen varying realisations. The very fact, however, that artists and writers in such profoundly different countries as for example Finland, Poland and Hungary have defined themselves as belonging to or being at the “avant-garde” (or as representing a specific avant-garde movement or one of its variants like the “underground”) calls for research that takes into consideration both the differences and the similarities in the multiplicity of motivations, contexts and traditions as well as in the desire to connect and identify with a transnational phenomenon. The colloquium will thus not focus on the avant-garde, but on the avant-gardes, not on one movement or canon, but on a polycentric network with multiple local knots and contextual functions.

The three notions of “transfer”, “appropriation” and “function” are proposed as methodological tools or perspectives in focusing on the topic. On the one hand, the aim will be to understand how, through which channels of communication and through which schemes of interpretation, influences and intertexts crucial for the development of the avant-gardes have been transferred from one country and cultural environment to another. On the other hand, one has to analyse how these influences and intertexts have been appropriated and transformed in artistic and literary production, and further what functions avant-gardes have had in different societies and contexts of art and literature (for ex. criticism of consumer society in Finland, resistance to totalitarianism in the East). Focus can also be on “negative cases” marked by the resistance to and explicit condemnation of avant-gardes.

Alongside of the analysis of specific historical cases, the colloquium welcomes epistemological and historical reflections on the relations between the centre and the periphery, reflections that will not reproduce the often criticized models of “dominating vs. dominated” or “sending vs. receiving country”, but instead will emphasize the multiple, reciprocal and productive aspects in the relations between countries. The colloquium will also seek to develop, reorient and deepen the discussion on the “literary Europe” that was started after the fall of the Berlin wall and has been further spurred with the enlargement of the European Union in 1995, 2004 and 2007. This discussion has mostly focused on Central Europe and the Balkans and on the role of “national” literatures in political and cultural history. Displacing the focus towards the North and on the avant-gardes, which consist to a large extent of critical and transgressive artistic practices and which have developed in international networks, will permit to understand better the tensions and articulations between national identities and international connections as well as the aesthetic values and strategies of contestation or resistance avant-gardes have been connected with. Although some publications on the avant-gardes of Northern and Eastern Europe have been published recently or are in the press, the work remains largely undone.

• The official languages of the conference are French and English.

• The primary research fields invited to participate are: history of art, literary studies and comparative literature, history, history of ideas, semiotics, discourse analysis, and translation studies.

• Participation fee: 30 euros (covers colloquium material, coffee breaks and one lunch).

• The organisers will put 4 travel and accommodation grants at the disposition of participants.

• A peer-reviewed selection of articles based on the colloquium presentations will be published as a special issue of the Cahiers de la Nouvelle Europe.

• Researchers willing to present their work at the colloquium are invited to send, by March 31, 2011, an abstract of maximum 400 words (along with contact information, name and institutional affiliation) to the selection committee at the address <harri.veivo@helsinki.fi>. Those applying for a grant are invited to send also a 3-page CV and list of publications.