The conference will study Slavic and Ibero-American literatures of the 21st century and pursue questions about how historical experiences in family narratives are functionalized for a collective’s own formation of identity.

The conference draws on three main conceptual axes: What these narratives have in common is that they each construct specific constellations of the historical imagination and of family, whereby “family” is here conceived not so much as an organic micro-unity, but rather as changing, multiple relations between individual members, godparents, first- and second-degree relatives, non-blood-related family members, present and absent members, adopted children, etc. It seems, therefore, that these novels are only insufficiently characterized as “family novels,” and are in need of different typological rubrics and interpretive frameworks.

Furthermore, what characterizes these historically grounded novels of both areas is that they often are post-generational: They are written by members of a generation which, as a rule, did not directly experience these historical events, which are still seen as constitutive for the interpretation of the present and present identities. It is also significant that these narratives are no longer conceived as representing national identities, but paradigmatically speak for a collective that defined itself as detached from national frames and boundaries, be they regional, ethnic, religious, or ideological. At the same time, the comparative confrontation between Ibero-American and Slavic literatures promises fruitful discussions regarding the differences and similarities (experiences of war, political ideologies, post-dictatorship) across a spectrum of contemporary works of literature.

Also a digital participation is possible. To obtain a Zoom-Link, please write to angela.calderon@uni-leipzig.de.

Programme:

23.11.2022 / Bibliotheca Albertina, Beethovenstr. 06, 04107 Leipzig

13.30–14.30 Welcome and Opening Remarks
Anna Artwińska, Jobst Welge, Ángela Calderón (Leipzig): Family Constellations: Concepts, Symptoms, Perspectives

14.30–16.00 Transnational Experiences, Fragmented Forms
Anja Tippner (Hamburg): The Family Novel as Memory Form: Transnational Constellations in Dovlatov, Stepanova, Ulitskaia
Natasha Gordinsky (Haifa, Israel): Genre and Its Discontents: Family Novel in Post-Soviet Jewish Literature
Joanna Moszczynska (Regensburg): O remanescente: o tempo no exílio (2016) by Rafael Cardoso: Between History and Memory
Chair: Petra James

16.30–17.30 Keynote
Tamara Hundorova (Kyiv, Ukraine): Narrating Intergenerational Trauma and Anti-Maternalistic Critique in Post-Independent Ukrainian Literature

24.11.2022 / Polnisches Institut, Markt 10, 04109 Leipzig

9.00–10.30 Imagined Lineages
Błażej Warkocki (Poznań, Poland): Family of Choice and History (in Polish Literature)
Adriana Rodríguez Alfonso (Salamanca, Spain): Cross-Border and Alternative Communities in Cuban Cold War Narratives
Petra James (Brussels, Belgium): Novels of Female Lineage in Czech Literature — Soft, Capitalist, and Sellable Feminism?
Chair: Matteo Colombi

11.00–12.00 Keynote
Fátima Marinho (Porto, Portugal): Merging Public and Private Identities: Topics on 21st Century Portuguese Novels

13.30–15.00 Transnational Constellations, Violent Histories
Pablo Valdivia (Frankfurt an der Oder): On the (Im-)Possibilities of Family Narratives in Times of Violence: Writing Family Novels after García Márquez
Serena Cianciotto (Leipzig): Violence, Repetition, and Interrogation of the Self: Personal and National (Hi-)Story in José Luís Peixoto’s Generational Novel Livro (2010)
Matteo Colombi (Leipzig): Old New Families and (Good) Old Magical Realism between Southern America and Czechia: S Baťou v džungli by Markéta Pilátová and Síndrome de Praga by Juan Pablo Bertazza
Chair: Anne Brüske

15.30-16.30 Memories, Archives, Nostalgia
Michael Karrer (Halle-Wittenberg): No Home Movies. Political Uses of the Family Archive in Argentine Documentary Film
Libuše Heczková (Prague, Czech Republic): Zone Most. Coal, Booze, and Memory Loss. Searching for Viable Relationships in the Literature of the North Bohemian Coal Basin

16.45–17.30
Anne Brüske (Regensburg) & Karoline Thaidigsmann (Heidelberg): Entangled Narratives of Horror and
Nostalgia. Socialism and Family in Diasporic Cuban and Polish Post-Millennium Graphic Novels
Chair: Pablo Valdivia

24.11.2022 / 19.00–20.30 / die naTo, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 46, 04275 Leipzig
Reading / Book Presentation of Aurora Venturini’s Die Cousinen (Las Primas) with Johanna Schwering, Jobst Welge & Ángela Calderón

Organizers: Anna Artwińska, Angela Calderón & Jobst Welge / Institut für Romanistik & Institut für Slavistik der Universität Leipzig

Info: www.romanistik.de/aktuelles/6436, www.philol.uni-leipzig.de/institut-fuer-slavistik
Eintritt: frei
Ort: Bibliotheca Albertina, Beethovenstr. 06, 04107 Leipzig,
Polnisches Institut, Markt 10, 04109 Leipzig &
die naTo, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 46, 04275 Leipzig

Programm des Polnischen Instituts: