Closure of Conference project. Post-Conference Plans

Many many thanks to everyone who participated in the conference, to all those who presented papers, read their poetry or translations, contributed to discussions or just came to listen.

This blog will remain open as a record of the conference proceedings and will continue to include the programme, the abstracts of the presentations and the short biographies of the participants.

We have removed the conference papers from this site because we intend to include revised versions in a post-conference book. This book will not be a representation of the conference proceedings as such, however, but a volume of articles roughly reflecting the structure of the conference. The book will be edited by Ursula Philips, supported by a team of advisers (Urszula Chowaniec, Knut Andreas Grimstad, Kris Van Heuckelom and Elwira Grossman). It is expected that the volume will appear in 2013.

Should anyone wish to contact the authors of papers or read the original papers, please contact the conference organizer.

Monday, November 07, 2011

CONFERENCE ON POLISH LITERATURE SINCE 1989

UCL SSEES 9-11 NOVEMBER 2011

PROGRAMME

Evening event 9 November 5.30 -8.30 pm

SYMPOSIUM ON CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ (1911-2004)

Venue: UCL Institute of Archaeology Lecture Theatre, 31-34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY
5.30-7.15 pm,  followed by Drinks Reception in the Masaryk Room, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 16 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW

Speakers:
Cynthia Haven (Stanford University): Miłosz: The Moment After Death
Mindaugas Kvietkauskas (Lithuanian Institute of Literature and Folklore, Vilnius): Poet as Mediator: Miłosz and Local Memory
Mira Rosenthal (Stanford University): Czesław Miłosz as a Translator of Contemporary Poetry
Richard Reisner: The World of Czesław Miłosz. Bombus Terrestris in the Authorial Honeycomb of Translators and Translated
George Gömöri (formerly University of Cambridge): The Captive Mind 60 Years Later [TO BE READ IN HIS ABSENCE]

Chair: Robin Aizlewood, Director UCL SSEES

MAIN CONFERENCE 10-11 November
Venue: Rooms 431-433, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 16 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW

DAY 1
9.00 – 9.30am: REGISTRATION

9.30-11.00 am:
Panel 1: INTRODUCTION TO DEVELOPMENTS IN POLISH LITERATURE AFTER 1989
Introductory remarks: Ursula Phillips (UCL SSEES)

Speakers:
Hanna Gosk (University of Warsaw): Notions of “Homeland” in Recent Polish Prose (twenty years after the country regained sovereignty)
Jerzy Jarzębski (Jagiellonian University, Kraków): The Conflict of Generations in Contemporary Prose
Urszula Chowaniec (University of Tampere/ Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski University, Kraków): The Ruined Bodies of Travellers and Foreigners in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing (Mapping Melancholy as a Revolutionary Gesture)
Discussant: John Bates (University of Glasgow)
Chair: Ursula Phillips
11.00 am Coffee

11.30am – 1.00 pm:
Panel 2: LITERATURE, LITERARY STUDIES AND GENDER
Speakers:
Błażej Warkocki (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań): Strategies of Gay Male Emancipation in Polish Prose Since 1989
Dirk Uffelmann (University of Passau): Wrong Sex and the City: Polish Migration and Masculinity
Monika Świerkosz (Jagiellonian University, Kraków): Marianna in the House of Bluebeard: Tropes of Female Authorship in Izabela Filipiak’s Absolute Amnesia.

Discussant: Roberto Kulpa (Birkbeck)
Chair: Tuesday Bhambry (UCL SSEES)

1.00-2.00 pm LUNCH

2.00-3.30 pm:
Panel 3: JEWISH THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH LITERATURE
Speakers:
Joanna Michlic (Brandeis University): Into the Well of Memory: Michał Głowiński’s Jewish Childhood during the Holocaust
Knut Andreas Grimstad (University of Oslo): Revisiting the Other Side: Mnemonic Strategies in Piotr Paziński’s The Boarding House
Katarzyna Zechenter (UCL SSEES): “Matka Żydówka”: Jewish Women and Memory
Paul Vickers (University of Glasgow): Constructing the Memory of a Polish Jewish Community in Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s Nasza klasa/Our Class (2008/2009)

Discussant: Izabela Filipiak (University of Gdańsk)
Chair: François Guesnet (UCL Dept of Hebrew and Jewish Studies)

3.30-4.00 pm Coffee

4.00-5.30 pm:
Panel 4: OTHER TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY PROSE
Speakers:
Agnieszka Mrozik (Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences): Women’s Archives – Storage Pantries: Identity Politics in Women’s (Auto)biographies After 1989
Kris van Heuckelom (Catholic University of Leuven): Itinerant (Wo)Men: Migration and Inter-Ethnic Coupling in Recent Polish Prose
Uilleam Blacker (Memory at War Project, University of Cambridge): Recovering the Memories of Lost Others in Contemporary Polish Literature

Chair: Katarzyna Zechenter (UCL SSEES)

DAY 2

9.30-11.00 am:
Panel 5: DRAMA AND THEATRE
Speakers:
Grzegorz Niziołek (Jagiellonian University, Kraków): Ressentiment as Experiment: Polish Theatre and Drama After 1989
Bryce Salisbury Lease (University of Exeter): Hidden in the Theatre? The New Archive of Queer Performance Activism
Elwira Grossman (University of Glasgow): Transnational or Bi-Cultural? Challenges in Reading Post-1989 Drama Written ‘Outside the Nation’

Discussant: Paul Allain (University of Kent) 
Chair: Paul Vickers (Glasgow)

11.00-11.30 am Coffee

11.30-1.00 pm:
Panel 6: TRANSLATION
Speakers:
Catherine Grosvenor: Translating the Moment: Experiences of Translating Contemporary Polish Theatre
Antonia Lloyd-Jones: Translating Children’s Books
Bill Johnston (Indiana University): The Peasants are Revolting, or Szymek from the Village and Joe from Missouri: Problems of Voice in Translating Wiesław Myśliwski’s Stone upon Stone
Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese (University of Copenhagen): Rewritten Poems and Anthologized Presences: A Sequel

Discussant: Knut Andreas Grimstad (Oslo)
Chair: Dorota Hołowiak (UCL SSEES) 

1.00-2.00 pm LUNCH

2.00-2.45 pm:
Izabela Filipiak in discussion with Ursula Phillips and Urszula Chowaniec – about her own work and on recent writing by women

2.45-5.00 pm [break for coffee 3.45-4.00 pm]
Presentation of developments in recent Polish poetry accompanied by readings:
Marek Kazmierski:  Polish Poetry Since1989 – A Brief Reconnaissance
Wioletta Grzegorzewska: Looking for Real Poetry with Czesław Miłosz [followed by readings; translations by Marek Kazmierski]
David Malcolm (University of Gdańsk): Memory and Diction in Jerzy Jarniewicz's Poetry
Katarzyna Zechenter: Readings from her W cieniu drzewa (2011) [translations by Bogdana Carpenter]
Translators - Richard Reisner, Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, Bill Johnston, Mira Rosenthal, Antonia Lloyd-Jones: readings selected from their own translations of Ewa Lipska; Marcin Świetlicki, Marzanna Kielar, Wojciech Bonowicz, Krystyna Miłobędzka; Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn Dycki; Tomasz Różycki; Tadeusz Dąbrowski and Jacek Dehnel)

Chair: Ursula Phillips

5.00-5.30pm:
CLOSING DISCUSSION
Chair: Elwira Grossman (University of Glasgow) 

Ursula Phillips, 7 November 2011