Köztes terek / Spaţii intermediare / Spaces In Between ‒ Nemzetközi konferencia 2019

The conference that will take place on 26‒27 April 2019 proposes to think further the central topic of the previous conference organized by the research centre ‒ Border Crossings ‒, this time focusing on Spaces In Between. The ontologically determining experience of in-betweenness is reflected in diverse ways and displays manifold configurations in several contemporary literary, linguistic, social and medial phenomena. In the light of processes unfolding in the global and digital culture of our days, the idea of in-betweenness does not reinforce binary logic and opposite poles but rather implies passages, overlaps, crossing and meeting points, simultaneities and convergences.

Contrary to the constraints of dichotomous thinking, Andrei Pleşu speaks about an intermediary space which is “the space of faith, the space of a potential encounter between earth and heavens. This is the interval in which the angels move up and down, on Jacob’s ladder” (Despre îngeri [On Angels], Humanitas, 2003, 20). In relation to interculturality, the experience of the space in between does not manifest in the opposition of the own and the other but rather through the recognition of the other in one’s own, and vice versa, the own in the other. In the context of postcolonialism, the third space (Homi Bhabha) refers to the space where the relations of colonial oppositions are restructured, meanings and qualities become ambiguous, thus the forms of hybridization result in shared socio-cultural spaces in which the possibilities of cohabitation and mediation become nuanced.

The relativity and plurality of social identity formation, the figurations of in-betweenness in literary works, the modes of linguistic contact, the symbiosis of media all attest that in-betweenness is a fundamental experience of culture. It creates manifold, complex systems and patterns in the spaces in-between the self and the other, life and art, reality and fiction/virtuality. Our conference aims to create a forum to debate reflections, dilemmas, case studies, evaluative surveys and new paths in connection with all the above issues.

We cordially invite you to join in!

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

• passages, transitions, transgressions between cultures;
• processes of identity formation, marginal cultures, minority identity;
• figurations of in-betweenness in contemporary literature;
• reception, understanding, in-betweenness in dialogue;
• metaleptic transgressions at the boundary of fiction and reality;
• spaces in between high and popular literature;
• in-between space configurations: border zones, heterotopias, non-places;
• in-between spaces of history and historical memory;
• passages between culture and nature, ecocriticism;
• generic in-betweenness, hybridity, heterogeneity;
• problems of linguistic and cultural mediation;
• linguistic dimensions of spaces in between;
• translanguaging, translingual communication;
• bilingualism, multilingualism and spaces of language use;
• virtual/digital textuality;
• language uses and linguistic variety;
• linguistic code-switching, hybrid language use;
• interart relations, intermediality, multimediality, medial in-betweenness.

The scientific committee of the conference

• Professor Erika BENCE, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
• Professor Tuomo LAHDELMA, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• Professor Mircea MARTIN, President of the Association of General and Comparative Literature from Romania (ALGCR), Romania
• Associate Professor Ildikó VANČO, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia
• Associate Professor Ina VISHOGRADSKA, Sofia UniversitySt. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria

Plenary speakers

CAIUS DOBRESCU, Professor, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Letters, writer, essayist, literary critic. Major academic preoccupations: the artistic, literary and intelectual avant-garde movement and its political impact; nationalism in Eastern Europe and the Balkans; political, institutional and cultural modernization in Eastern Europe and the Balkans; cultural origins of terrorism and terrorist ideologies; cultural policies of the European Union; crime narratives. Recent publications: volume of studies: Plăcerea de a gândi. Moştenirea intelectuală a criticii literare româneşti (1960‐1989) (The Pleasure of Thinking. Intellectual Heritage of Romanian Literary Criticism (1960‐1989), 2014); novels: Praf în ochi (Eyewashing, 2017); Moarte în ținutul secuilor (Death in Szeklerland,2017), volume of poems: Odă liberei întreprinderi (Ode to Free Enterprise, 2009).

Professor Caius DOBRESCU, University of Bucharest

JUDIT NAVRACSICS is Professor at the University of Pannonia, Veszprém (Hungary), founder and Dean of the Multilingual Doctoral School, and currently the Dean of the Faculty of Modern Philology and Social Sciences. She has published several studies and books in Hungarian and English about bi- and multilingualism, about the psycholinguistic of bilingualism, second and third language acquisition and bilingual mental lexicon. Her best-known publications are: 1999, A kétnyelvű gyermek (The Bilingual Child), Budapest: Corvina; 2007, A kétnyelvű mentális lexikon (The Bilingual Mental Lexicon), Budapest: Balassi; 2010, Egyéni kétnyelvűség (Individual Bilingualism), Szeged: Szegedi Egyetemi Kiadó; 2011, Szóaktiváció két nyelven (Word Activation in Two Languages), Budapest: Gondolat.

Professor NAVRACSICS Judit, University of Pannonia, Veszprém

ÁGNES PETHŐ is Habilitated Professor of Film Studies at the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where she is currently head of the Department of Media. Her research domains are: intermediality and self-reflexivity in film art, the theory of relations between image and text, the relationship between film and the other arts, the poetics of modern and postmodern film. She is the author of Múzsák tükre. Az intermedialitás és az önreflexió poétikája a filmben(Mirror of the Muses. The Poetics of Intermediality and Self-Reflexivity in Film, 2003), Cinema and Intermediality. The Passion for the In-Between (2011), Reflexivitás a filmben/Reflexivity in Film (2013), the editor of the volumes: Intermediality in Eastern European and Russian Cinema (forthcoming), The Cinema of Sensations (2015), Film in the Post-Media Age (2012), Words and Images on the Screen (2008).

Professor PETHŐ Ágnes, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca

BEÁTA THOMKA, Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the University of Pécs, Hungary. Research domains: literary theory, narratology, poetics of genres, contemporary Hungarian literature, comparative literature, cultural studies. Recent volumes:Beszél egy hang. Elbeszélők, poétikák (A Voice Narrates. Narrators, Poetics, 2001), Glosszárium (Glossary, 2003), Prózai archívum. Szövegközi műveletek (Prose Archive. Intertextual Operations, 2007), Déli témák. Kultúrák között (Southern Themes. Between Cultures, 2009), Prózaformák. Elbeszélő művészet és interpretáció (Prose Forms. Narrative Art and Interpretation, 2012), Regénytapasztalat. Korélmény, hovatartozás, nyelvváltás (Experience of the Novel. Experience of the Age, Belonging and Linguistic Code-Switching, 2018). Edited volumes: Az irodalom elméletei 1-5 (Literary Theories 1-5), Narratívák 1-12 (Narratives 1-12), Kritikai zsebkönyvtár 1-16. (Pocket Library of Criticism 1-16.)

Professor THOMKA Beáta, University of Pécs

The conference will embrace parallel sessions held in English, Hungarian and Romanian. Each paper will be allotted 20 minutes for the presentation, followed by discussions. The programme will also include a virtual panel.

Submission Guidelines

In order to participate, please fill in the online registration form below. We expect abstracts of maximum 250 words. Participants presenting their lectures in Hungarian or Romanian are required to also submit an English abstract besides the one formulated in the language of the lecture.

The abstract submission deadline is January 31, 2019.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by February 7, 2019.

A selection of the papers will be published in Hungarian and Romanian language conference volumes as well as the 2019 issues of the English-language scientific journal Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, indexed in several international databases (CEEOL, EBSCO, ELSEVIER’S SCOPUS, ERIH PLUS):

http://www.acta.sapientia.ro/acta-philo/philologica-main.htm

Early-bird participation fee – paid between February 10 and February 28, 2019: 40 EUR.

Participation fee paid on site: 50 EUR.

Virtual panel – paid between February 10 and February 28, 2019: 30 EUR.

MA and PhD students will receive a discount of 40% and 30% respectively.   

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Miercurea Ciuc!