Second NEWW November meeting
28 November 2008, the international network programme NEWW "New approaches to European Women’s Writing" organises a workshop in collaboration with the Dutch doctoral school Huizinga Instituut (Amsterdam). The theme of this workshop is: Literary Historiography and the "Other". This is the second of a long term series that allows the network researchers to discuss various themes of their research project. Graduate students are also invited to participate.
Meeting place:
Utrecht, Faculty of Humanities:
Drift 23 (near the Janskerkhof), 11.00 – 17.00,
11.00 - 12.30: room 0.12,
13.30 - 17.00: room 1.06.
Program:
- 10.30, room 0.12
Coffee/tea
- 11.00
Anke Gilleir:
Literary Historiography and the "Other": Presentation
- 11.15
Hilde Hoogenboom:
From Bibliography to Canon: Classifying Women in France, England, Germany, and Russia, 1700-2005
- 11.45
Discussion (taking into account the Moretti-article, see below)
- 12.30
Lunch at Drift 17
- 13.30, room 1.06
Anne van Buul, Groningen:
Recycling "old" research material, where "the other" had been left aside
- 15.50
Discussion
Monica Soeting:
"The first in history, who .....": from surprise to historiography
- 14.00
Discussion
- 14.15
Zsuzsanna Varga:
Extending the canon: including Hungarian women into European history
- 14.35
Hanneke Boode, Groningen:
The image of Margit Kaffka in Hungarian literary historiography
- 14.55
Discussion (taking into account the Hutcheon-article, see below)
- 15.15
Tea/coffee
- 15.30
Anne van Buul, Groningen:
Recycling "old" research material, where "the other" had been left aside
- 15.50
Discussion
Monica Soeting:
"The first in history, who .....": from surprise to historiography
- 14.00
Discussion
- 16.15
Final discussion: conclusions relevant for other "others" than women?
- 17.00
Closure
Discussion will be about historiography and the question of "cultural heritage": how did our present day knowledge of historical literature get established and how did it present and represent "others" (women as well as other "others").
Obviously as children of the 21st century we know that history is a construction. Philosophy of history has investigated into history as a textual practice (H. White, F. Ankersmit), we have learned how collective memories are formed and institutionalized (A. Assmann), we realize that both on collective and individual level memory functions in a spatio-temporal context, we have come to estimate the impact of trauma, we know that traditions are invented (E. Hobsbawm), that concepts such as "origin" and "generation" are not mere facts of nature but highly functional terms in the process of community formation, terms that may blur diversity and incompatibility of historical experience (S. Weigel). At the end of the addition we are extremely conscious, yet how does it influence our practice as scholars in literary history?
Our workshop addresses questions on the kinds of literature we deal with, on how much – in spite of every possible form of reflexion - we take for granted the canonical inheritance in spite of all sorts of ideological awareness.
Some bibliographical references:
in particular:
- Linda Hutcheon, "Interventionist literary histories: nostalgic, pragmatic, or utopian", in: Modern Language Quarterly, 1998, 59/4.
- Franco Moretti, "The slaughterhouse of literature", in Modern Language Quartely, 2000, 61/1.
and for further reading:
- Aleida Assmann, Vergessene Texte. Konstanz: UVK Univers. Verlag.
- Walter Benjamin, "Ausgraben und Erinnern", in : Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Timan Rexroth. Frankfurt : Suhrkamp, 1972, IV/1.
- Susan A. Crane, "Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory", in: American Historical Review, 1997, 102/5.
- Amanda Gaily, "How Anthologists Made Dickinson a Tolerable American Woman Writer", in: The Emily Dickinson Journal, 2005, XIV/1.
- Jutta Schlich, Literarische Authentizität. Prinzip und Geschichte. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2002.
SvD, November 2008
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