Location and Relocation

Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
Tuesday, 16th October
8.30-9.30
9.30-9.40
Registration
Conference opening
Prof. Michal Peprník
J. F. Cooper’s Young Gentlemen in the process of dislocation and relocation
9.40-10.35
11.20-11.35
11.40-11.55
10.40-12.00
11.00-11.15
10.40-10.55
KEYNOTE
LECTURE
12.00
13.30
In James Fenimore Cooper’s early novel The Pioneers (1823), as well as in The Last of the Mohicans (1826), we
find young upper-class gentlemen who are dislocated from their proper social place and disempowered as a
result, either by impoverishment or by choice. The loss of social power is compensated for by a strategy of
disguise that strongly resembles the postcolonial notion of mimicry as a conflicting assimilation (Bhabha) that is
used by subjugated subjects as a way of both (mockingly) undermining the superiority of the dominant culture
and achieving their own objectives, resulting in the restoration of their original social status and power. The
question remains whether this relocation entails a transformation of subjectivity or a mere re-affirmation of the
value system prior to the dislocation.
Alice Sukdolová
Daniel Deronda Located and Relocated in Space and Time
The paper should focus on three different perspectives of spatio-temporal relations in George Eliot’s last novel as seen from the variety
of narrative points of view of characters who fit different locations in space and time. The novel seems to be based on radial concepts
of spaces seen either from the perspective of Jewish or Gentile environment, reflecting the romantic tendencies towards the openness
of space and randomness of human existence. The theoretical approach of the paper would be based on Deleuze and Guattari’s
classification of the smooth and striated space that occurred in A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Those categories
(the smooth and the striated) could possibly question the classification of the romantic and “realistic” aspects of Victorian novels, and
possibly replace them.
Karla Kovalová
(Re)Constructing Identities in Marie-Elena John’s Unburnable
It has been argued that West Indian women’s writing “emphasizes a sustaining affinity with native place and landscape” (O’Callaghan:
Woman Version 5). But what happens when oral traditions tied to the native place become damaging to one’s self? Weaving together
West Indian history and African culture, Marie-Elena John’s debut novel Unburnable (2006) presents a story of a 37-year-old Lillian,
a native of Dominica, who, traumatized by her familial history, preserved through chanté mas (masquarade) songs, searches for
healing and “truth.“ This paper traces the complex process of reconciling the past and the present, the mythical and the real, and the
spiritual and the physical, as it examines Lillian’s attempt to deal with her unresolved past, which never ceases to haunt her. In doing
so, the paper explores the ways in which personal, cultural, and national identities get constructed, interpreted, and perpetuated, as well
as the ways in which John, a new voice in Caribbean literature, uses the metaphor of “unburnable,” which, combining elements of
resistance and permanence, offers a unique way of approaching not only the nature of the human spirit but also the collective history of
African Diaspora.
Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová
Politics of Location on the U.S. Mexican Border: Anzaldúa’s nepantla Voices Chicana Literature
Most prominent Chicana writer and thinker Gloria Anzaldúa constructs Chicana and/or colored literature that it is literarily, culturally,
and politically oppositional as it challenges Anglo-American and European standards of what constitutes traditional genres and values
represented in/by literature and history. As Tuhiwai Smith suggests, re-writing and re-righting the position of postcolonial subjects in
history is a means of the struggle for self-determination and recognition. Within such struggles - writing, be it artistic, autobiographical
or academic, has proven to be an efficient tool in acquiring both, location to write/speak from, and a voice. Drawing on Spivak's theory
of the subaltern, my presentation will explore how Anzaldúa constructs herself as a speaking and writing subject by means of inventing
the multifaceted mestiza subjectivity and by re-constructing the liminal space of nepantla (a concept not dissimilar to Bhabha’s spacein-between) that is a symbolic parallel used to overcome the arbitrariness of the geographical demarcation of the Rio Grande Valley
and the Othering of the Chicano people. Both these aspects were instrumental in the writer's politics of location. I will explore how
Anzaldúa's writing and discursive techniques become resonant although/because they challenge the strictures of the Western thought.
Anzaldúa's writing and discursive methods convey a theory that is both, individual because it is derived from a lived experience, and
communal for it references the multiplicity of oppression of Chicanos/as.
Zdeněk Janík
Study of Cultural Values and Identities
Individualism-collectivism is a dimension of cultural variability that contributes to the content of cultural identities and explains
differences and similarities across national cultures. The U.S. national culture embraces individualism, as opposed to collectivism, and
promotes individualistic values, such as independence and self-reliance. Although individualistic tendencies might characterize the
U.S. national culture as a whole, at the individual level U.S. Americans may not strongly identify with individualistic tendencies that
are typical of their national culture. The study herein presented examines the individualism-collectivism dimension at the individual
level by identifying respondents’ cultural values that are categorized to determine the respondents’ individualistic and collectivistic
tendencies. Data representing results of the study were gathered by interviewing a sample of American college students and are not
meant to make generalizations about the U.S. national culture. Rather the study emphasizes that cross-cultural comparisons should take
into consideration individualistic and collectivistic tendencies at the individual level to find out how strongly individuals identify with
their national culture.
Lunch break
1 of 6
Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
14.10-14.25
14.50-15.05
14.30-14.45
13.30-15.10
13.50-14.05
13.30-13.45
Tuesday, 16th October
15.10
15.40
Alice Tihelková
Portrayal of the North-South Divide in the British Media
In recent decades, beginning with the 1980s, Britain has witnessed a rise in inequality accompanied by a decline in social mobility. In this
process, the historical North-South division and its economic social and cultural aspects have become more prominent. While the South as a
whole has grown more affluent, the North has suffered the consequences of the closure of traditional industries in the 1980s and struggled
with mass unemployment and lower living standards as opposed to the South. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the recent coverage of
the North-South Divide by the British media, namely the five major national dailies (the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the
Independent and the Daily Mail) and the BBC News, and to establish whether/how their political leanings are reflected in their
representation of the Divide.
Michaela Weiß
Tipping the history: Gender (re)construction in Tipping the Velvet
The paper will focus on gender construction in a novel by contemporary British writer Sarah Waters. In Tipping the Velvet she is turning to
history to recreate and redefine the tradition of female view of sexuality and identity. Similarly to Virginia Woolf in her novel Orlando,
Waters presents her view of fluid gender identity and pre-defined social and sexual roles her characters struggle with. Various aspects of
male/female identity shifts, including cross-dressing will be discussed in the context of contemporary gender studies.
Stanislav Kolář
Relocated from an Elevator to a Cattle Car: Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Thane Rosenbaum’s Elijah Visible
Thane Rosenbaum as a child of Holocaust survivors represents the “second generation” of the authors who reflect the historical trauma of
the Nazi genocide from a new perspective. My paper analyzes Rosenbaum’s short story cycle or a novel-in-stories Elijah Visible in which
the fragmented postmodern protagonist Adam Posner is profoundly affected by the traumatic legacy of his parents. Although with each
story his identity is modified, the experience of this American Adam is framed by the feeling of being relocated in space and time. It is
shaped by postmemory if we use Marianne Hirsch’s concept characterizing the vicarious witnessing to the traumatic past. He belongs to
those people who “were possessed by a history they had never lived” (Helen Epstein). Being immersed in the Holocaust, at the same time
he is aware of its indescribability since Rosenbaum knows that the words may fail to transport the reader to the scene of crime. Despite the
obsession with the Holocaust, the author expresses his conviction that the Holocaust should not be the only formative element of Jewish
identity for his generation. The paper attempts to illuminate the mediation of traumatic experience between two generations and to show
that intergenerational transmission of trauma has also its limitations caused by the silence of the survivors about the Holocaust, resulting in
the alienation of the post-Holocaust generation from their parents. It also stresses the contrast between their experience and simultaneously
the struggle of the survivors’ children to remember the collective trauma.
Irena Přibylová
My Boarding School Home
The paper explores an impact of specific communities on its young and adult members as reflected in literature. Boarding schools,
residential schools, detention camps: they all provided new homes for young people, hoping to change them. In 1899, in an opening poem
to Stalky & Co., Rudyard Kipling comments on the upbringing: “There we met with famous men/Set in office o’er us; And they beat on us
with rods – Faithfully with many rods – Daily beat us on with rods.” In 2007, Todd Strasser opens his Boot Camp with a quotation: “You
don’t get out by giving them what you think they want. You don’t get out until you are what they want.” How has an idea of an ideal
upbringing at a secluded location changed over one century? Which perspectives have been stressed in ´boarding school´ novels over time,
what is the role of power, gender, or ethnicity there? Answers will be sought in a selection of American, Canadian and British texts.
Bogumila Suwara & Zuzana Husárová
Literature Coded for Marked Quick Response
The paper studies the phenomenon of QR codes (abbreviation of Quick Response) and AR markers (Augmented Reality) in the context of
contemporary literature. QR codes and AR markers, both traditionally represented as squares containing small black-and-white squares,
force the user to firstly scan or photograph these images through their smartphones, computers, tablets or other digital devices and only
after that they can read the content (information in any kind of media, sometimes websites). The phenomenon of these codes has not
bypassed even the innovative literature. Several literary pieces have been based either on the concept of QR codes and markers or have
implemented them for a particular reason (ranging from inviting the reader to discovery, hinting towards unveiling the content, referring to
the tendencies of using QR codes in contemporary message-delivering or even marketing). The paper will concentrate mostly on two works
of digital literature, one from the Slovak environment (Joseph Juhász Urban Memoire) and one American literary piece (Amaranth
Borsuk´s and Brad Bouse´s Between Page and Screen). The works will be looked at not just from the perspective of their formal attributes
but their poetics will be also analyzed. Literary pieces that might fall into the group of Quick Response Art or Augmented Reality Art,
might in contrast need quite some time to reveal their “real” “spirit/sprite.”
Coffee break
2 of 6
Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
15.40-15.55
16.00-16.15
16.20-16.35
16.40-16.55
17.00-17.15
student section
student section
15.40-17.20
student section
student section
Tuesday, 16th October
17.20
18.30
18.30
20.00
Monika Tekielová
Relocation as both liberation from and return to “the old ways” in Rebecca Goldstein’s Mazel
This paper deals with the connection between one’s relocation and liberation from and return to Orthodox Judaism in Rebecca Goldstein’s
novel Mazel. This paper focuses on the Orthodox Jewish community, especially on three women who are the key figures in the novel, and
on the transgenerational change of view. There are different tendencies presented when it comes to religion – Sasha, the main protagonist
and the oldest of the generational line of the three women, gets more freedom with every relocation to a bigger city; her daughter Chloe
who is rather indifferent towards Judaism represents an interlink between her mother and her daughter Phoebe who moves to a smaller town
and voluntarily returns to “the old ways” that her grandmother has rejected.
Michaela Staňová
Memory and Transferred Loss in Jonathan Safran Foer´s Everything Is Illuminated
The work of third-generation Jewish American novelists frequently involves an attempt to undo the past via fiction. This endeavour to
revive history has a commemorative purpose and emphasizes the importance of preserving the knowledge and memory. The paper will
elaborate this concept through focusing on Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer which will serve as a case study to exemplify
the presence of the issues connected to transmission of trauma in the contemporary fiction. By outlining the main characters ´ disturbing
lives, the paper will probe into the the mental transformation of the survivor’s children and grandchildren who after a long time of being
kept in ignorance, learn about their ancestor’s traumatic experience. The related concept of postmemory and fragmentation of identity as a
product of traumatic experience will be elaborated. Furthermore, the novel’s intriguing use of symbols and literary deviations from the
linear narrative style will show the importance of trauma writing which is indispensable for the process to keep the memory of the past
events alive.
Kristýna Pípalová
“Father, you're driving me mad”: Transmission of trauma from father to son in Art Spiegelman's Maus
This paper deals with trauma transmitted from Vladek Spiegelman to his son Art in Art Spigelman’s graphic novel Maus . The trauma
experienced by Vladek, who lived in the Nazi territory during the Second World War and who personally experienced the Holocaust, was
not forgotten, although he was relocated both in time and place. It was still present and had an impact on his son Art, born after the War.
The transferred trauma will be explored in both volumes of Spiegelman's Maus, where Vladek Spiegelman’s life is presented both in the
past, showing the difficult period of the Second World War in Europe, and in the present - in the postwar United States between 1950's and
1980's, showing a problematic relationship between Vladek, who was never fully integrated into American society, and his son Art. In my
paper, I will focus on this particular level of narration, especially on the signs of trauma transmitted from Vladek to his son Art.
Martina Novotná
Sounds To Be Heard, Words To Be (Sp)Read: Voice(s) of Female Body
This paper deals with the question whether and how the body can serve as the source of a new discourse. The main issues discussed are the
matters of morphological and anatomical divergence related to gender, the aspects of sensual and emotional experience gained by means of
female body and soul, and their reflection in literary texts, considering the point of view of feminist literary criticism.
Mykhailo Iushutin
Specificity of competent Russian localization by the example of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Localization is an integral part of professional translation. A professional translator must understand that quality translation also involves a
competent localization of the text. ‘Local’ means "native", the localization of the text - a process aimed at trying to make something local,
in this case - the translation. Close in meaning to the term "localization" is a well-known term "adaptation". As a broader concept,
Adaptation involves the adaptation of the text at all levels of language, including grammatical lexical and stylistic. A Localization, in turn,
is the process of adaptation of a foreign text to the cultural context of the country, whose language is translated. In other words, we can say
that localization is a form of adaptation. There is no doubt that the world invented by J.R.R. Tolkien has attracted the attention of many. It
makes very different judgments about the ethics and ideologies of this world. Sometimes people have different opinions, which causes
heated debates of ideological nature. An indirect confirmation of this is a considerable number of Russian translations of only one "The
Lord of the Rings". It was published in five translations and each has its staunch supporters and opponents. This paper attempts to analyze
the transfer at a certain angle, in the aspect of a competent localization, namely, to see how Tolkien's epic score interpreter affects the
artistic features of the translation.
Walk
Dinner
3 of 6
Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
Wednesday, 17th October
Prof. Tibor Fabiny
Dislocating and Relocating the Word of God in the Prefaces of English Bible
Translations from Tyndale to the King James Bible
8.40-9.35
10.00-10.15
10.20-10.35
9.40-10.40
9.40-9.55
KEYNOTE
LECTURE
10.40-11.10
The 16th Century Reformation is rightly considered to be an unexpected intellectual revolution in
European cultural history. For its pioneers it meant the explosion of the hidden power of the Word of
God which was, for centuries, subordinated to the authority of church tradition. However, by discovering
the dynamic power of the Logos (Verbum Dei), the reformers saw themselves as instruments of severing,
i.e. dislocating the Word from the church tradition and, as distant forerunners of reader response
criticism, relocating them in the believers’ heart.
The prefaces to Bible-translations in 16th Century England conspicuously mark this shift. They
illuminate the biblical metaphors of the Word of God when it is identified with “light”, “net”, “gold”,
“milk”, “meat”, “honey”, “fire”, “hammer”, “sword of the spirit”, “leaven”, “glass”, “seed”, “rain”,
“dew”, or, “treasure”.
I propose to read the prefaces of some 16th and early 17th century English Bible translations by
Tyndale (1525-1534), Coverdale (1535), Cranmer (1540), Whittingham et al. (1560), Parker (1568),
Gregory Martin et al. (1582 and 1609), and Miles Smith (1611) with the purpose finding and identifying
word-of-God metaphors in them and observe how they function as speech-acts in exhorting the readers to
learn to read.
The speech-act nature of these metaphors „work upon“ the readers and they draw them into the
biblical texts. Thereby they teach them the art of reading Scripture as they put it: “Love Scripture and
Wisdom will Love Thee.”
Christopher Koy
Relocating Tongue, Money and Text: Charles W. Chesnutt’s Unpublished Conjure Story “The Dumb Witness”
Denied publication in his story collection The Conjure Woman (1899) by his Southern-born editor, the African American
fiction writer Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) decided to integrate a modified version of the short story “The Dumb
Witness” into the plot of his novel The Colonel’s Dream (1905). The story concerns a slave woman named Viney who served
her master sexually as well as being his house servant until he decided to marry a white woman. Perhaps out of jealousy,
Viney informs his fiancé that they had been lovers, and the marriage between her and Viney’s master is promptly broken off.
As punishment, her tongue is cut off and she becomes “dumb” with terrific implications regarding voice, silence and
authority of the female slave. This contribution analyzes the differences of the story from its original short story form to its
modified and “relocated” form as a subplot within a novel.
Ivan Lacko
Tracey Scott Wilson’s Buzzer and the Myth of Post-racial America
Tracey Scott Wilson’s play Buzzer premiered in February 2012, well into the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. The
play deals with the fragile concept that stood at the beginning of Obama’s victory in 2008, the notion of a “post-racial”
America, that is, a country whose citizens have gone beyond the frames defined by race. Obama’s campaign was based on
the idea that race could be transcended not only in politics, but also in people’s everyday lives. This presentation attempts to
examine how Tracey Scott Wilson’s play tackles the intersection of political slogans, policies and strategies with the world of
emotions, personal and familial history, and racial identity. My analysis will focus on racial and post-racial theories, the
frailty of race transcendence, and the far-reaching consequences of social schemes, such as neighbourhood gentrification and
revitalization, or class and race segregation. Underneath the structures that constrain them, Tracey Scott Wilson’s characters
desire to engage in a post-racial utopia, but remain unable to transcend their racially and socially ingrained identities.
Hana Waisserová
Epidermal Schemes in Contemporary South Asian Transnational Fiction: Skin’s Cultural Osmosis
This paper proposes that skin reveals locations; much of contemporary English Ethnic/Transnational fiction pays attention to
skin. Skin seems to intercede current transcultural osmosis that occurs within transnational social and cultural discourse. Skin
in narratives succumbs to cultural osmosis; epidermal schemes and racialized skin narrate consciousness as introduced by
Frantz Fanon. For literary purposes a skin becomes a medium that equates or substitutes for the subject. It attains subjective
essentials; I argue essence of an identity is not hidden beneath the skin or inside the body, it is written primarily on a skin.
Skin markers and images can be read as metaphors to be examined. These meanings and conceptions lead to understanding
of self within transnational narratives. This concept seems certainly valid for ethnicized epidermal projections of
transcultural fiction in which “skin itself...stands metonymically for the whole human being.” (Benthien). In other words, the
skin markers may reveal personal formative histories, or even national histories as claimed notably by Frederic Jameson.
These concepts may be illustrated by examples from South Asian or African Anglophone fiction: Arundhati Roy's The
Namesake, Chris Abani’s Graceland and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Coffee break
4 of 6
Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
Wednesday, 17th October
11.10-12.10
11.10-11.25
11.30-11.45
11.50-12.05
12.10-13.40
Martina Kastnerová
New Historicism and Cultural Studies: Discussion about fiction and history
The study is focused on the critical consideration of the so-called New Historicism, regarding especially in the context of the
relation between factional and historical, as well as investigating cultural studies as an inspiration for New Historical
interpretations of (especially Renaissance) culture. New Historicism disputes crucial differences between historical and
fictional narrative and comes back to the notion of historicism and considers an analysis of the particular historical context as
a very important aspect of interpretation. It can also be interpreted as a reaction to a Formalist Theory and some of the more
extreme poststructural positions (namely New Criticism and the so-called “close reading“ can be mentioned in the United
States where New Historicism originated).The principal idea of New Historicism is the investigation, reflection and
consideration of analogies between language or historical text and literary fiction; so, the hegemony of the language and text
is broken with the help of the accent on the inseparability of relations between history, text, language and ideologies. New
Historicism is also defined as the “poetics of culture“, so the other main topics and concepts of their investigation are
circulation of social energy and cultural fields, role of politics and power in the context of theory of interpretation etc.
Ivona Mišterová
Bluffing, Deception, and Self-Deception as Key Elements in Marber’s Play Dealer’s Choice
In
the
chapter
on
new
comic
voices
in
modern
British
drama,
Christopher
Innis
(2002, 430) noted that Patrick Marber’s play Dealer’s Choice (1995) “follows Mamet’s American Buffalo or Glen Garry
Glen Ross in focusing on an all-male society where dealings, whether in business or cards, become a vicious test of
manhood”. In Dealer’s Choice, the border between reality and game is blurred; poker continuously dominates lives and
everyday discourse of Marber’s protagonists. Perhaps not accidentally, the play begins and ends with the toss of a coin.
Despite the presence of comic elements, the play conveys a pessimistic view of the society, dominated by self-deception and
scam. The paper aims to explore the production of Dealer’s Choice by the Dejvice Theatre at the International Festival
Theatre in Pilsen in 2011. It attempts to reveal the correlation between poker and life in the play/production. To what extent
is bluffing in poker analogous to bluffing in life? The article further focuses on the personalities of particular protagonists,
their motivation to play, and their relationships, developed and destroyed by poker, or rather, by their poker addiction. The
article concludes by drawing a parallel between production and play in terms of its language (with emphasis on poker jargon)
and setting (in the kitchen and restaurant, and in the basement).
Lukáš Merz
Location in Peter Ackroyd’s Novels
The paper (currently still in progress) aims to analyse the role and meanings of location(s) in selected works of Peter
Ackroyd. Throughout his novels, “a place” is located not only geographically, but also historically. At the same time it is
invested with an underlying set of meanings that affect the structure of the story, present the characters with a particular
sense of attachment and shape their actions. This does not include only London, which is in centre of Ackroyd’s attention,
but also other locations fundamental to the novel’s inner workings. Based on theoretical concepts of space and place (David
Harvey) and mythical interpretations of location in literature (Daniela Hodrová), the presentation will summarise the way
location plays an integral and almost defining part in the novels of Peter Ackroyd.
Lunch break
5 of 6
Location and Relocation
in literature and cultural studies
11th International Cultural Studies Conference
Pardubice, 16th – 17th October 2012
Wednesday, 17th October
13.40-13.55
13.40-15.00
14.00-14.15
14.20-14.35
14.40-14.55
15.00
Svitlana Motorna
Features of English language localization in the translation of literary texts
Localization of the translation - the concept is relatively new - is considered on a par with terms such as globalization and
internationalization, it is an integral part of professional translation. The translator must adapt the text to the national
mentality, to make certain amendments to the sociocultural (religious foundations, social habits, rules of conduct, ethical and
moral standards), psychological, political and other differences in the translated text. In practice, sociolinguistic factors are
decisive in translating text into another language. If you do not use the localization, translation will be superficially
understood by the reader, but the main semantic load may be missed. In particular examples, we note that the localization is
required when translating reality - words that are unique to one country, social group. To properly localize the text need to
think about the features of the mentality of the target audience, to take into account national circumstances and realities of the
country: traditions, customs, political system. The purpose of localization is the translation of the text in which the target
audience perceives it as a text written by a native speaker and media. It is inappropriate to translate literally, a sociocultural
information that will be incomprehensible to a foreign audience. Conformity of foreign origin should come in place of the
native folklore. Localization is a complex process requiring in addition to language skills and knowledge of different fields of
cultural characteristics of other countries. So, before you undertake any translation, it is necessary to gather as much sociocultural information and, preferably, from original sources.
Richard Stock
Relocating the Making of Meaning: A Naïve Reading of Ulysses
This presentation will consider the location and relocation of the making of meaning in a modernist literary novel, namely
Ulysses by James Joyce. I will outline the “naïve reader” of Ulysses that Leo Bersani proposes in The Culture of Redemption
and consider the reading strategies and making of meaning that such a reader might produce with Ulysses. This reader might
seem to lack authority over the text, but it is in fact the best narrative test case to consider where authority over meaning
resides: in the reader, the author, or the text. It also allows us to see where these figures might compete and cooperate.
Specifically, I claim the naïve reader will first have to identify the changes in narration in the novel and decipher the basic
events in the story time. Then the naïve reader—if s/he continues re-reading—proceeds to construct a larger story from the
copious material in the novel that does not directly narrate the story-time events. Throughout the presentation I will highlight
the reality and importance of re-reading such a difficult text as a critical concept that we often overlook in studying literature.
Usually we assume a linear, one-time reading process, which disregards a large part of the reading experience the novel
enacts.
Jan Suk
Locating and Relocating Life (/) Art: Forced Entertainment & the Necessity to Articulate Anything?
The present analysis attempts to accentuate the endless dichotomy: artistic endeavour to relocate and granulise creative
landscape of contemporary performative strategies. Such Sisyphean labour, naturally, is shadowed by antagonist tendency of
academia, to deliberately locate or re-locate the tendencies by pigeon-holing, defining, simply pinning them down. The role
of fund-raising and art-fashion drivers, institutional affiliations shall be also considered and further contrasted with purely
innocent or deliberately ignoring gestures of performance makers and practitioners. The paper also frames the absurdity of
performance art theorizing in the north-western canon, postcolonial context, and finally in the central European academic
milieu. To illustrate this uncannily osmotic artist-critic relationship, the paper illustrates this creative schizophrenia of
vanguard-ing and critical rat-race on the umbrella terms of Live Art, postdramatic theatre or performance theatre; moreover,
the paper suggests how these notions fail to be applied on the genre-bending body of work of the British theatre troupe
Forced Entertainment, particularly their noughties´ oeuvre. The second part of the analysis introduces the implementation of
the Life Art (sic) definition, which highlights the elements of failure, duration, errness and artistic playfulness as the
cornerstones of such a methodological approach. By implementing this critical lens, the essays concludes with scrutinizing
the blurring Art/Life, Art-Life or Art+Life issues to embark upon the question of futility, vanity and ephemerality of the
academic endeavour, therefore of this sole paper.
Daniel Sampey
O’Neill in Provincetown, Provincetown in O’Neill
Over the years the Provincetown Players and the career of Eugene O’Neill have been inseparable. Each has kept each other
as central in the American theatre imagination at the expense of other little theatres and other playwrights of the first decades
of the 20th century. This paper will examine certain key productions by the Provincetown Players and other New York groups
in the early 1920s. The work of other dramatists, for example Susan Glaspell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Djuna Barnes,
Theodore Dreiser and Wallace Stevens will be compared with what O’Neill was attempting at the time. Finally the influence
from this period on O’Neill’s later work will be explored.
Conference closing
6 of 6