Conference "What Makes Literature: Redefining Realism, Poetics, and Belonging"

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

16–18 September 2026 · Raiņa bulvāris 19, Riga, Latvia
Organised by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia

Day 1 — Wednesday, 16 September

08:45–09:30 Registration
09:30–09:50 Opening Ceremony

10:00–11:00 Keynote Lecture
Riikka Rossi — University of Helsinki, Finland
Realism, Naturalism, and Emotions: Perspectives from Nordic Literature
Chair: Eva Eglāja-Kristsone

11:00–11:30 Coffee Break

11:30–13:10 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Helga Mitterbauer
11:30 Daniel Arrieta Domínguez — Kyoto University of Foreign Studies — The Timechain Rupture: Bitcoin, Critical Posthumanism, and the Dislocation of Belonging in 21 Futures
11:55 Taisija Oral — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — The Birth of Lithuanian Pop Novel Out of the Spirit of 90s: The Expanding World of Pietinia kronikas
12:20 Mariia Dorogova — Tallinn University — A Border State in Transition: Postcolonial Identities in Estonian and Ukrainian Prose of 1990s and 2000s
12:45 Rehnuma Sazzad — School of Advanced Study, University of London — Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988): Translating between Spheres of History, Politics, and Culture

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: Dirk Göttsche
11:30 Fredrik Renard — Uppsala University — The Novel as Space of Appearance: Reading the Novel With and Against Arendt
11:55 András Lempel — University of Stuttgart — The Misunderstood Realism — Dissecting the Layers of a Fundamental Concept in Lukács’s Aesthetics
12:20 Zanda Gūtmane — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — The Reception of Western Humanist Marxism and the Expanding Boundaries of Realism in Latvian Soviet Literature
12:45 Anna Schubertová — Charles University — The Invisible Form of the Realist Novel

13:10–14:10 Lunch Break

14:10–15:50 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Daniel Arrieta Domínguez
14:10 Eliisa Puudersell-Tolk — University of Tartu — Shame in Baltic and Central Eastern European Transition Literature
14:35 Kati Kanto — University of Oulu — Spirituality and Shame as Part of Young Growth in Young Adult Novels
15:00 Inguna Daukste-Silasproģe — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Recovering of Places: The Change of Poetics in Latvian Exile Poetry
15:25 Agita Misāne — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Place, Faith and Men: Aglona in Latvian Literature

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: Svend Erik Larsen
14:10 Artis Ostups — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Narrating the Holocaust by Bullets: Sigitas Parulskis, Māris Bērziņš, and Realism
14:35 Māra Rubene — University of Latvia — Bergson’s Traces in Socialist Realism: Milda Paļēviča’s Theoretical Palimpsest
15:00 Dace Bula — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Literature and Skeleton: Eco-Realism of Extinction Narratives
15:25 Anne Fastrup — University of Copenhagen — Realism and the Fantasy of “Nature’s Free Gifts”: Agrarian Labour and Regimes of Belonging in Nineteenth-Century Denmark

15:50–16:20 Coffee Break

16:20–17:35 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Jeanne E. Glesener
16:20 Christopher Meid — Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg — Reflections of Military Occupation in National Socialist Travel Literature
16:45 Meinolf Schumacher — Bielefeld University — Belonging after Defeat I. The Literary Afterlife of the Wehrmacht in Heinrich Böll
17:10 Matthias Buschmeier — Bielefeld University — Belonging after Defeat II. The Literary Afterlife of the Wehrmacht in Heinz G. Konsalik

Room B · Stream 4: Digital Literature and Reading Cultures
Chair: Kirsten von Hagen
16:20 Svend Erik Larsen — Aarhus University — Belonging in Literature and Digital Media
16:45 Tuuli Hongisto — University of Helsinki & Hanne Juntunen — University of Tampere — Examining Readers’ Perceptions of AI Authorship through Social Media Commentary
17:10 Madara Stāde — University of Latvia — Representation and Reinterpretation of Literature in Video Games: The Baltic Context

Day 2 — Thursday, 17 September

09:00–10:00 Keynote Lecture
Rosa Mucignat — University College London, United Kingdom
Mother Tongues and Languages of the People: Realism in “Minor” Languages
Chair: Jānis Oga

10:00–10:30 Coffee Break

10:30–12:10 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Agita Misāne
10:30 Sabujkoli Bandopadhyay — University of Regina — Representation of Gendered Lives and Endangered Desires
10:55 Andjela Bisevac — University of Wollongong in Dubai — The Architecture of Destruction: Realism, Surface, and Belonging in Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
11:20 Ilona Gorņeva — University of Latvia — The Moment by Magda Szabó in the Context of Ancient Literary Tradition
11:45 Michaele Weissman — Independent scholar and writer — Redefining Memoir

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: András Lempel
10:30 Jeanne E. Glesener — University of Luxembourg — Languages of Realism: Multilingualism and Narrative Strategies in Luxembourgish Novels since 1980
10:55 Vildan Kansın Ökruca — İstanbul Yeni Yüzyıl University — Entangled Realisms in Contemporary Fiction
11:20 Ilze Jansone — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — “Come on, that’s not how things are”: Interpretation of Svens Kuzmins’ Brīvībene
11:45 Zita Kārkla — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Memory, Matter, and the Poetics of Care

12:10–13:10 Lunch Break

13:10–14:50 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Jagoda Wierzejska
13:10 Dina Bite — Riga Stradiņš University — Fragile Solidarities: Sisterhood and Identity Formation in Regīna Ezera’s Nodevība
13:35 Sandra Meškova — Daugavpils University — Representation of Places of Memory in Anita Liepa’s and Māra Zālīte’s Life Writing
14:00 Maksymilian Odrzywołek — University of Warsaw — The Tale of Two Poets or The Tale of Two Scholars?
14:25 Viktorija Šeina — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — Censorship of Lithuanian Literary Classics during the Stalinist Period

Room B · Stream 2: Poetics and Forms
Chair: Madara Stāde
13:10 Helga Mitterbauer — Université libre de Bruxelles — Soundscapes of Trauma and Deployment: Cross-Border Poetics in the Alpine Project
13:35 Hatice Yurttaş — Istinye University — Nation, Translation, and Genre
14:00 Kitija Balcare — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Negotiating Care: Ecodramaturgy in Contemporary Chamber Operas Monstera Deliciosa and Cantus Firmus
14:25 Elīza Paula Graudiņa — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Literature on Stage: Adaptations in Latvian and Lithuanian Theatre (2025/2026)

14:50–15:20 Coffee Break

15:20–16:35 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Dace Bula
15:20 Jagoda Wierzejska — University of Warsaw — A “New Pole” by the Seaside: Belonging and Modernity in the Discourses of “Maritime Poland”
15:45 Nikolay Zhelev — Institute of Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences — The Sea in the Bulgarian Revival

Room B · Stream 4: Digital Literature and Reading Cultures
Chair: Anda Baklāne
15:20 Antonina Lorek — Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow — “A Mathematical Writer”: Close Reading and Artistic Experiment in Stanislawa Przybyszewska
15:45 Kirsten von Hagen — Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen — Footnotes, Scientific Discourse, Publishing Practices: Encyclopaedic Writing as a Marker of Reality
16:10 Anete Saulīte-Stačkune — National Library of Latvia — Digitalizing the Tangible Experience: Screen-Mediated Practices in the Contemporary Latvian Publishing Industry

16:35–16:50 Short Break

16:50–18:30 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Aistė Kučinskienė
16:50 Dalia Pauliukevičiūtė — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — Realism and Melodrama in Lithuanian Public Discourse after the Revolution of 1905
17:15 Rebecca Gigli — Institute of Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences — Reconfigurations of Literary Forms and Identities in Maria Stepanova’s In Memory of Memory
17:40 Yordan Lyutskanov — Institute of Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences — Allegorisation and New Realism as Means of Self-Inclusion

Room B · Stream 2: Poetics and Forms
Chair: Matthias Buschmeier
16:50 Claudia Gioia — Södertörn University — Socialist Realism in Sweden: Arbetarlitteratur in Dialogue with Soviet Literature
17:15 Ilze Ļaksa-Timinska — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Everyday Stalinism in Latvian Short Prose of the 1920s–1930s USSR
17:40 Māra Grudule — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Stream of Consciousness in a World Dominated by Socialist Realism

Day 3 — Friday, 18 September

09:00–10:00 Keynote Lecture
Dirk Göttsche — University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Realism and the Politics of Memory: Competing Narratives of the Anti-Napoleonic Wars in German Literature, 1813–2013
Chair: Benedikts Kalnačs

10:00–10:30 Coffee Break

10:30–12:10 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Andjela Bisevac
10:30 Irene Rabinovich — Holon Institute of Technology — Realism, Masculinity, and Diasporic Belonging in Adolphe Danziger De Castro’s Muscular Jew
10:55 Satyam Kumar — Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi — Renegotiating Belonging: Multilingual Aesthetics and the Politics of Memory in Contemporary Black German Literature
11:20 Carolina Portela / Pedro Dorneles da Silva Filho / Fábio R. Penna — Animist Realism and Amefricanity: An Anticolonial Reading of Afro–Latin American Literatures
11:45 Veronika Simanova — University of Nitra — Interliterary Contact and the Transformation of Poetics in Hispanic American Migrant Literature

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: Rosa Mucignat
10:30 Pauls Daija — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Proto-realism in Latvian Literature
10:55 Maris Saagpakk — Tallinn University — On the Estonian Reception of Theodor Hermann Pantenius’ Baltic Realism
11:20 Alexander Waszynski — Greifswald University — Fontane and The Baltic: The Dynamics of Non-Belonging in the 19th-Century Maritime Novel
11:45 Ginta Pērle-Sīle — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — The Influence of Traditional Cultural Conceptions on Depictions of the Countryside and the City

12:10–13:10 Lunch Break

13:10–14:50 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 3: Belonging and Identity
Chair: Viktorija Šeina
13:10 Jurga Jonutytė — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — Narrative Expression of Normativity Loss: Atypical Plots of the Gulag Memoirs
13:35 Jānis Oga — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — Authorial Activism and Cultural Belonging in Late Soviet Latvian Periodicals (1982–1985)
14:00 Saulius Vasiliauskas — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — Teaching Literature under Ideological Constraint: Organization, Control, and Canon Formation in Late Soviet Lithuania
14:25 Elvis Friks — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — The Inner Stranger: Search for Home in Postcolonial Latvia in Aina Zemdega’s Heritage

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: Fredrik Renard
13:10 Anda Baklāne — National Library of Latvia — Mapping Realism: Rural and Urban Space in Latvian Novels, 1879–1940
13:35 Signe Leth Gammelgaard — University of Gothenburg — Realist Decadences in the Danish Fin de Siecle: The Novels of Herman Bang
14:00 Mirjam Hinrikus — Under and Tuglas Literature Institute, Estonian Academy of Sciences — Realist and Antirealist Mimesis in Estonian Decadent Literature
14:25 Aistė Kučinskienė — Vilnius University — Realist Aesthetics in the Prose of Female Authors in Lithuanian Interwar Literature

14:50–15:10 Short Break

15:10–16:25 Parallel Sessions

Room A · Stream 2: Poetics and Forms
Chair: Eliisa Puudersell-Tolk
15:10 Jaanus Valk — Under and Tuglas Literature Institute, Estonian Academy of Sciences — A Curious Case of Syllabic Verses in Jaan Kaplinski’s Poetry
15:35 Ingus Barovskis — University of Latvia — Transformations of Poetics: From the Soviet Canon to Folkloric Symbols
16:00 Akvilė Rėklaitytė — Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore — Searching for Reality Beyond Socialist Realism: Reading Stasys Jonauskas

Room B · Stream 1: Mapping Realism
Chair: Maris Saagpakk
15:10 Kristiāna Ābele — Institute of Art History, Art Academy of Latvia — Unveiling the Sensuous and Psychological Reality of Art and Life
15:35 Mārtiņš Mintaurs — National Library of Latvia — Belonging to Realism: Writers Shaping the Latvian National Identity, 1900–1914
16:00 Benedikts Kalnačs — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia — The Ideology and Aesthetics of Fin-de-siècle Latvian Literary Realism

16:25–16:45 Afterwords and Closing Reception
Informal closing gathering with refreshments and conversation.