International Conference "Transcultural Codes of Literary Discourse"

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine,  Kyiv National Linguistic University, Professor Valentine Fesenko Department of Theory and History of World Literature are pleased to invite you to participate in the International Conference Transcultural Codes of Literary Discourse that will take place on March 19-20, 2015 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
     

The prefix “trans” in “transculturalism” stands for various forms of interaction inside and outside the texture of a literary text. Transculturalism is a semantic and semiotic mirror reflecting the complexity and ambiguity of  any phenomenon related to “human condition”: from realization of one’s own body to constructing the image of national identity. To be in the “trans” zone means to balance on the verge, to combine, to reject, to reconstruct, to realize, to decode the articulate, the inarticulate, the real, the imaginary, the uncanny, the own, the strange, but it also means to establish the forms of mutual understanding, help, to construct emotional, intellectual, and narrative bridges “in between”. Transculturalism is as much the tool of reflection on contemporary world as the mode of being within it.

The following panel topics will be in operation:

• Heterolinguism of/in the Literary Text
• The Meeting of Cultures: Imagological aspects
• Trauma Theory: within the Space of Event, Reflexion, and Narration
• Non-normative Body

Round Table discussion within the thematical framework of the conference will take place on December 4, 2014 at Kyiv National Linguistic University, room 236 (building 1). 

Opening: 15:00

Speakers:

Tamila Kyrylova, Cutural imaginary as a transdisciplinary category in German literary theory
Viktoriia Ivanenko, Literary criticism, problems of representation and concept of identity in the context of Trauma theory
Iryna Sobchenko, "Writing between languages": literary minimalism and the conceptions of language identity
Oksana Uzlova, Literary paradigm of disability studies

Working languages of the сonference are: Ukrainian, English, and Russian.

The conference materials and papers approved for the publication will be published in Contemporary Literary Studies (Vol. 12).

The Organizing Committee preserves the right to decline the publication of papers that do not meet thematic, formal, or publishing criteria.




The working formats of the Conference:

• Participation with presentation
• Participation in the Round Table discussion
• Participation without presentation (with a status of an attendee)  

Venues:

Kyiv National Linguistic University Conference Hall (building 3),

Kyiv National Linguistic University Rooms 203, 207, 201, 302, 301, 304 (building 3).

The deadline for submitting applications is February 1, 2015

E-mail for submitting applications: svitlit1@gmail.com.

Heterolinguism and writing between languages

     The question of the polyphony of language and discourse in a work of fiction consists of several aspects. Historically speaking, it alludes to the formation of a transnational and interlingual identity in the postcolonial and postindustrial world – an identity that can provide an alternative to binary relations between centre and periphery. Ideologies of linguistic communities – Francophonie, Hispanicity, Lusophony etc – are not only instruments of cultural influence and linguistic expansion of former colonial states. They lead to the creation and development of prominent new literatures whose geography is not restricted by continents and languages. 

     On the other hand, the issue of heterolinguality (seen as the impossibility of monological discourse) is also raised in connection with the need to reflect on the humanistic catastrophes and traumas of the 20th century – the period during which identity-centered logic has more than once proved to be tragically limited. 

     Thus the heteroglossia of a work of fiction presupposes the existence of certain ethos which is linked with the artistic expression. The ‘literature of linguistic turmoil’ (according to Canadian scholar Lise Gauvin) can be represented by migrant writing or the so called exile literature as well as by texts written within the bounds of one language, yet dedicated to examining the radical experience of alienation and otherness – such as concentration camp writing. Another important aspect of the problem of heterolinguality lies in formulating the question of the phenomenology of language in literary studies discourse, which comprises views ranging from Bakhtin’s pronouncement on the polyphonic nature of a work of fiction and its language to poststructuralist philosophy (language vs. writing, deterritorialization of language in writing) or contemporary transcultural and transidentity literary practices.

The Meeting of Cultures: Imagological aspects

     In the current situation of the ‘cultural turn’, the category of ‘cultural imaginary’, though not investigated adequately by the humanities, is one of the most promising and important points of intersection in interdisciplinary studies. Having received theoretical validation from psychoanalysis, the concept of ‘cultural imaginary’ has undergone considerable semantic expansion, since all processes of intellectual and creative cognitive activity result from the construction of ideas about the world and a human being’s place in it – that is to say, they embody imaginary meanings. One of the directions in literary theory which examines the category of ‘cultural imaginary’ is represented by imagological studies. The topical character of correlations between Self and Other stems from the extensive cultural context which embraces other cultures, countries, and nations and calls for a variety of methods and strategies necessary for analyzing and establishing the models of cultural communication or confrontation.

Trauma Theory: within the Space of Event, Reflexion, and Narration.

     The new millennium awakened to bloodshed of an unprecedented scale on 9/11, two subsequent wars followed in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Arab world was shaken with enormous loss of life and property in Libya and Syria. The legacy of violence we inherited from the twentieth century, “a century of traumas,” as Shoshana Felman calls it, has posed new existential and epistemological questions to human civilization, questions that trauma theory is trying to make sense of and answer.

     Trauma theory in itself functions as the most transcultural and transdisciplinary approach within the framework of literary studies since it embraces every area of human life and field of knowledge. Trauma theory works closely together with literary studies, history and historiography, social sciences, law, psychology, and psychiatry (medicine).

     In a traumatic situation literature tends to become a peculiar and powerful tool for constituting, filling in, and rethinking such entities as “event”, “memory”, “truth”, “history”, “fact”. Literature integrates the known and the unknown, the conscious and the unconscious, articulates the inarticulable, balances on the verge of possible giving some traumatic experiences the opportunity to be formulated, thought over, and lived through, as well as offering hope for spiritual and ontological revival of an individual as much as of ethnicities or nations.  

Non-normative body

Key words: deviant body: disease, disability, transgressive body, transgender body, criminalized body, victimized body, postcolonial body, modified body, monstrous body. 

     The destruction of traditional dichotomous type of Western thinking, brought about by liberal criticism of social discrimination, major mid-20th century emancipation movements, and later by the politics of multiculturalism, lead to critical re-evaluation of the very notion of ‘norm’ (bodily, gender, class, racial). This concept is viewed today as an artificial construct created with the aim of supporting an established social hierarchy built on binary oppositions (healthy – diseased, white – black, man – woman etc) and privileging the dominating social group.

     As society which describes itself as heterogeneous starts paying attention to minority ‘voices’ – those of the diseased, disabled, deaf etc – the understanding of human body dictated by the medical model is being replaced with the concept provided by the social model. This results in a particular interest in various manifestations of the body demonstrated by the humanities in recent decades. Owing to concrete cultural and social conditions, any deviation from the ‘unarticulated norm’, the latter embodied in the image of a mentally and physically healthy white heterosexual man, was for many centuries repressed, stigmatized, and served as a basis for social marginalization of the person displaying somatic signs of Otherness. Today, ‘deviant’ body is no longer perceived as a personal tragedy or a physiological defect that has to be removed. Rather, it is approached as a metaphor, a political sign, a social construct or a symptom of either individual or social collapse.

     The problem of pathologization and stigmatization of ‘non-normative bodies’, as well as the question concerning the formation of identity of individuals belonging to social minorities, comprise one of the most significant intersections of interdisciplinary studies. New theories of the perception of non-standard body, such as disability studies, deaf studies etc, function on the crossroads of sociology, anthropology, medicine, poststructuralist critique of power, Marxist theory, feminism, postcolonial and queer studies.

     Depiction of bodily variations is emerging as a litmus test for uncovering the mechanisms of the functioning of society today. On the one hand, society advocates inclusive policies aimed at, among others, people physically different from prevailing majority. On the other hand, however, it shows signs of being a ‘somatic society’ which concentrates on governing the bodies and develops a specific consumption culture manifested through ‘bodily McCarthyism’ (hysterical fight against ‘microbes’ and ‘dirt’, fierce fear of violating bodily boundaries which leads to irrational attempts at moral stigmatization or blaming), unreasonable preoccupation with therapy or uncontrollable desire to conform to the ‘norms’ of health, beauty etc.

The publication and presentation of V. I. Fesenko’s next book is scheduled as a part of the preparations for the conference.

Professor Valentine Fesenko Department of Theory and History of World Literature

is looking forward to cooperating and meeting with you!