PhD Researcher (f/m) - ABV201251

This full-time PhD position (max. 4 years), created to study the modernist writer's speech in Germany as a genre, is launched by M.D.R.N. M.D.R.N. is a large-scale K.U.Leuven-based research project (GOA) that focuses on the multifaceted nature of literature during the first half of the twentieth century. M.D.R.N. looks at the many ways in which literature between 1900-1950 defined and legitimized itself in the main Western European traditions (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch) and canvasses literature's multiple functions, histories and mediatizations. The project has a double aim: to further our understanding of writing in the modernist period, and, more generally, to develop a multidimensional and functionalist approach to the dynamic identity of modern Western European literature. For more information, visit: www.mdrn.be.

http://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/vacancies_aapbap/ABV201251_PhD_Researcher_52014949.pdf 

Litteratur, mediehistoria och informationskulturer

Senior and emerging scholars, academics and researchers are invited to apply. This conference is organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in partnership with Linköping University (LiU).

The conference w ill take place on 26 - 30 September 2012 in Norrköping, Sweden.

Submission Deadline: 01 April 2012

http://www.avantgardenet.eu/nyhedsbreve/EAM_newsletter_5.pdf 

Krisztina Passuth (Université Eötvös Lóránd, Budapest): Les moyens de « transfert » des idées d’avant-garde en Europe Centrale: revues, expositions, rencontres internationaux des années vingt

Tom Sandqvist (University College of Crafts, Arts and Design, Stockholm): Synthetism Vs. Stylistic Purity. Jewish Cultural Influences on Central and Eastern European Modernism and Avant-Garde before 1939

(English version follows)

Le colloque a pour objectif de jeter les bases d’un programme de recherche international. Le colloque se concentrera sur la question des fonctions des avant-gardes ainsi que des transferts et appropriations des influences et intertextes dans l’Europe intermédiaire et du Nord dans la période qui s’étend de 1909 à la fin de la guerre froide. « Avant-garde » s’entend ici selon les deux interprétations traditionnelles du mot en tant que mouvement artistique ou littéraire qui revendique le rôle «d’art engagé », participant au progrès social et politique de la société, soit s’affiche en tant qu’ élément réflexif, critique, voire destructeur , au sein de la modernisation.

Etant donné la diversité des systèmes politiques dans l’aire géographique concernée, qui se situe entre l’Allemagne et la Rus sie et s’étend des Balkans aux pays nordiques, il est clair que ces deux aspects de l’avant-garde ont connu des formes variées. Mais le fait même que des artistes dans des pays aussi profondément différents que la Finlande, la Pologne et la Hongrie ont pu se définir comme « d’avant-garde » (ou représentant un mouvement spécifique d’avant-garde ou l’un de ses avatars comme le « underground ») appelle une recherche qui prendra en considération à la fois différences et similitudes dans la multiplicité des motivations, des contextes et des traditions et dans le désir de se connecter et de s’identifier à un phénomène transnational. Il ne s’agira donc pas de l’avant-garde, mais des avant-gardes, non pas d’un mouvement ou d’un canon unique, mais d’un réseau polycentrique à multiples noeuds locaux et fonctions contextuelles.

Les trois notions de «transfert », « appropriation » et « fonction » sont proposés en tant que perspectives ou outils méthodologiques pour la réflexion. D’une part, le but du colloque sera de comprendre comment, par quelles chaînes de communication et à travers quels schémas d’interprétation, les influences et les intertextes constitutifs pour les avant-gardes ont été transférés d’un pays et d’un milieu culturel à un autre. D’autre part, il s’agira d’analyser de quelle manière les influences et les intertextes ont été l’objet d’appropriations et de transformations dans la production artistique et littéraire, et aussi quelles fonctions les avantgardes ont eues dans des sociétés et des contextes artistiques différents (p.ex. critique de la société de consommation en Finlande, résistance au totalitarisme dans l’Est). La recherche pourra se porter également sur des «cas négatifs » de résistance ou de condamnation explicite des avant-gardes.

En plus des analyses de cas historiques, le colloque accueillera une réflexion épistémologique et historique sur les relations entre centres et périphéries, réflexion qui évitera de retomber dans l’application souvent critiquée des modèles «dominant vs. dominé » et «pays émetteur vs. pays récepteur » mais mettra plutôt en évidence la multiplicité, la réciprocité et le caractère productif des liens entre les pays concernés.

Le colloque cherchera aussi à développer, réorienter et approfondir la réflexion sur « l’Europe littéraire et culturelle » qui a commencé après la chute du mur de Berlin et s’est développée après les élargissements de l’Union Européenne en 1995, 2004 et 2007. Cette réflexion s’est essentiellement concentrée sur l’Europe centrale et les Balkans et s’est limitée à questionner le rôle des littératures « nationales » dans l’histoire politique et culturelle. Le déplacement de l’accent vers le Nord et l’analyse des avant- gardes, qui consistent essentiellement en pratiques artistiques critiques et transgressives et qui se sont développées au sein de réseaux internationaux, permettront de mieux comprendre les tensions et les articulations entre différentes manières de concevoir les identités nationales et les appartenances internationales et leurs relations par rapport aux valeurs esthétiques et aux stratégies de contestation ou de résistance. Malgré quelques publications récentes sur les avant- gardes de l’Est et du Nord, ce travail reste encore à faire.

• Comité d’organisation : Harri Veivo (CIEH&CIEFi), Peter Balógh (CIEH&CIEFi), Judit Maar (CIEH&CIEFi), Traian Sandu (CIEH&CIEFi).

• Comité scientifique : Harri Veivo (CIEH&CIEFi), Henri Béhar (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle), Catherine Durandin (INALCO), Evelyne Grossman (Université Paris Diderot), Judit Karafiàth (Université Eötvös Lóránd, Budapest), Tom Sandqvist (University College of Crafts, Arts and Design, Stockholm), Peeter Torop (Université de Tartu) et Tanja Ørum (Université de Copenhague).

• Les langues officielles du colloque seront le français et l’anglais.

• Les domaines disciplinaires invités à apporter leur contribution sont : l’histoire de l’art,

lettres modernes et littérature comparée, histoire, histoire des idées, sémiotique, analyse des

discours et traductologie.

• Frais d’inscrip tion : 30 euros (comprend le matériel, les pauses-café et un déjeuner).

• Les organisateurs mettent 4 bourses de voyage et d’hébergement à la disposition de

participants.

• Une sélection d’articles rédigés à partir des communications et choisis par un comité de

lecture sera publiée dans un numéro spécial des Cahiers de la Nouvelle Europe.

• Les personnes intéressées à présenter une communication sont invitées à adresser, avant le 10 avril 2011, un résumé de 400 mots au maximum (accompagnés des nom, adresse et affiliation professionnelle de l’auteur) à l’adresse suivante : <harri.veivo@helsinki.fi>. Prière de joindre un CV et une liste de publications de 3 pages maximum si vous sollicitez une bourse.

The colloquium aims to lay the foundations for an international research program. The colloquium focuses on the functions of avant-gardes as well as on the transfers and appropriations of influences and intertexts in Central and Northern Europe in the period running from 1909 to the end of the Cold War. Avant-garde is here understood according to its two traditional in terpretations as an artistic or literary movement that is willing either to take the role of “engaged art” promoting political and social progress or to position itself as a reflective, critical and even destructive element within modernisation.

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 in to 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 enlarge ment 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.

• Organizing committee: Harri Veivo (CIEH&CIEFi), Peter Balógh (CIEH&CIEFi), Judit Maar (CIEH&CIEFi), Traian Sandu (CIEH&CIEFi).

• Scientific committee: Harri Veivo (CIEH&CIEFi), Henri Béhar (University of Sorbonne Nouvelle), Catherine Durandin (INALCO), Evelyne Grossman (University of Paris Diderot), Judit Karafiàth (Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest), Tom Sandqvist (University College of Crafts, Arts and Design, Stockholm), Peeter Torop (University of Tartu) et Tanja Ørum (University of Copenhague).

• 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 April 10, 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.

MATERIALMEANINGS 

Third Biannual conference of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM) * 7-9 September 2012 * the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK * 

http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/materialmeanings/index.html  

This conference investigates the avant-garde's reconfiguration of matter and materials in the quest to generate new meanings and effects. Its particular focus will be the manner in which different artistic disciplines adopt strategies, theories and techniques from each other, and how they translate, transform and integrate conceptions and modes of expression from other sign systems. Proposals are invited for contributions which deal with any of the following: the interference or conflict of artistic disciplines; the interaction of disciplines in artistic movements; the combination of media in single artworks or artistic practices; the treatment of sign as matter and matter as sign; the materiality of art and the art of materiality; art and material environment; the world as matter and meaning; text as thing, things as texts; the transfiguration of traditional or found materials; the material effectivity of the avant-garde; the relationship between manifestos and art; technology and the transformation of meaning; the incorporation of the foreign or extraneous. We welcome contributions across all areas of avant-garde activity: art, literature, music, architecture, film, artistic and social movements, lifestyle, television, fashion, drama, performance, activism, design and technology. We especially welcome contributions which explore the combination of different media or practices within a single work or within a given environment. Please subscribe to the conference email list: https://lists.kent.ac.uk/sympa/info/eam-2012-cfp

Read or download the entire newsletter 

International colloquium organised by Centre Interuniversitaire d’Études Hongroises et Finlandaises (CIEH&CIEFi – Paris 3) & l’Institut Finlandais de Paris 

Paris

Septembre / September 23-24, 2011

 The colloquium aims to lay the foundations for an international research program. The colloquium focuses on the functions of avant-gardes as well as on the transfers and appropriations of influences and intertexts in Central and Northern Europe in the period running from 1909 to the end of the Cold War. Avant-garde is here understood according to its two traditional interpretations as an artistic or literary movement that is willing either to take the role of “engaged art” promoting political and social progress or to position itself as a reflective, critical and even destructive element within modernisation.

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.

After three decades of composition, Ron Silliman’s the Alphabet is complete, and published under one cover (University of Alabama Press, 2008). When this twenty-six-sectioned, thousand-plus-page poem was only available in discrete portions, in magazines, chapbooks, limited-run books, what punctuated each was not the poem’s next “new sentence” but concurrent claims and counterclaims on contemporary life.the Alphabet was written during decades when high theory and cultural studies had arrived in the academy to exact formal and mostly progressive social evaluations from culture and the arts, but still often at the expense of poetry’s own theoretical challenges to the academy’s institutional base; when intensified corporate consolidation of the mass media and new technologies were transforming existing paradigms of “the consumer society” (Baudrillard), its “captains of consciousness” (Ewen), and “culture of narcissism” (Lasch); and when, among other factors, manufactured consent (theorized equally by Burawoy for factory work as by Chomsky and Herman for mass media) propelled the US mainstream rightwards into postmodern politics. 

Please send 300-500-word abstracts for twenty-minute papers, or detailed proposals for panels, by 1 Nov 2010 to Louis Cabri at lcabri@uwindsor.ca.