Landscapes of Realism
Volume I of a new major investigation of literary realism, Landscapes of Realism. Rethinking Literary Realism in Comparative Perspectives, has appeared within the series of A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages, sponsored by the International Comparative Literature Association and published by John Benjamins (Amsterdam/Philadelphia). The volume, edited by Dirk Göttsche, Rosa Mucignat and Robert Weninger, reconsiders theoretical approaches to realism and traces major developments in European literatures from the late eighteenth to twentieth century. The volume includes a contribution by leading researcher of ILFA Benedikts Kalnačs titled The polyphony of late nineteenth-century Baltic realism.
Workshop on Pandemic Life Writing
On 27 April 2021, a workshop dealing with collecting and collections of pandemic life writing will take place online. Registration: https://tinyurl.com/pandemic-life-writing
This workshop offers life writing archivists and researchers an opportunity to reflect and share experiences on intense work carried out during the pandemic year in collecting and creating collections of pandemic diaries, memories and other types of life-writing material. Workshop participants will provide insight into collecting projects carried out in Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Latvia.
Read more...Call for papers: The 13th International Conference of Baltic Literary Scholars
The first biannual conference of Baltic literary scholars took place in Riga in 1996, and it has been followed by meetings in Vilnius and Tallinn. The 13th conference “Shifting Literary Culture since Stagnation in the Brezhnev Era: The Baltic Paradigm” is organized by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (ILFA) on 23–24 September 2021. We hope to host an in-person two-day conference at the National Library of Latvia in Riga, but, if necessary, we are ready to convert it into a virtual event in response to the pandemic restrictions. Read more...
16 presentations on socialism heritage
Records of the "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage" international conference presentations are now available at the Archives of Latvian Folklore YouTube channel.
The themes covered in the conference were related to the Socialist heritage’s impact on the development of folkloristics and related disciplines in Central and Eastern Europe. Among those were the role of the Socialist regimes of knowledge in the organization of folklore archives, ethnographic collections and other institutional representations of folklife; the contribution of folkloristics and related disciplines to resistance and dissent in the former USSR and the Soviet bloc countries, as well as history of folkloristics and ethnography in the light of Soviet postcolonialism. Read more...
Digital Catalogue of Latvian Charms
CALL FOR PAPERS for the last three slots in a thematic issue of LETONICA*
Are you working on the post-war disciplinary history of folkloristics or related discipline in the former Soviet Union or the Socialist Bloc countries? Please consider contributing a draft of an original research article to the thematic issue of a double-blind peer-reviewed journal published by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia.
Our special interest lies in but is not limited to such themes as:
–Post-Socialism/Colonialism in the disciplines of folkloristics and ethnography;
–The impact of the Socialist heritage on the development of folkloristics in the post-Socialist countries;
–The role of the Socialist regimes of knowledge in the organization of folklore archives, ethnographic collections and other institutional representations of folklife;
–The contribution of folkloristics and related disciplines to resistance and dissent in the former USSR and the Soviet bloc countries;
Deadline: April 2021. Review/acceptance: June 2021. Publication: October 2021.
Inquiries: socfolk@gmail.com
* Double-blind peer-reviewed journal of East European Humanities. Published since 1991, free, SCOPUS indexed, online, informal Open Access, DOI.
A Collection of Ethnographic Ensembles
The newly created collection No. 2235, "Recordings of Ethnographic Ensembles", comprise a repertoire of 24 Latvian ethnographic ensembles which continue to sing and play local traditional music from various villages of Kurzeme and Latgale. This is a special audio-visual collection, as it reveals musical soundscapes presented by current Latvian ethnographic ensembles. The recordings are now available in a digital environment along with thorough historical information about the ensembles and rich illustrative material in the form of photographs.
Read more...The conference "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage" programme is here!
The conference "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage" will start next week and will be held online. Please register here.
The scholarly and creative conference “Experience and Views: 100th Birthday of Poet Velta Sniķere”
The scholarly and creative conference “Experience and Views: 100th Birthday of Poet Velta Sniķere” will take place on December 18, 2020, from 4:00 to 9:00 PM. The conference will involve literature scholars, poets, prose writers, movie directors, musicians, and other cultural people. The programme will be supplemented with greetings from Velta Sniķere’s family, friends and government officials. Presentations and readings will reveal three vivid parts of Velta Sniķere’s life – poetry, yoga and public work. This will be the first time that we will be able to look at all the facets of the poet’s life and work.
Read more...Online conference "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage"
We kindly invite you to "save the date". The Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia organises an international conference "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage" on 17–18 December, 2020.
The conference will be held in distance using ZOOM virtual meeting place. In order to receive further information and an invitation, please, fill in the Registration form.
Read more...Conference "Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries"
The 5th annual conference "Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries" (DHN2020) will start tomorrow and will be held online.
Special guests of the conference this year will be Professor of Social and Ethical Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University Virginia Dignum, Professor of Folkloristics at the University of Iceland Terry Gunnel, Researcher at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab at the University of Cambridge Jon Roozenbeek, and Chair and Principal Investigator at the Laboratory for Perceptual and Cognitive Systems at the Faculty of Computing at the University of Latvia prof. Jurģis Šķilters. More than 60 papers, 20 academic poster presentations and 7 workshops are included in the main programme of the conference.
A New Study on Charms
The publishing house of the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art (University of Latvia) recently published Aigars Lielbārdis' research on Latvian charms, “Collection 150. Charms”. The book includes a description of the development and content of the ALF Collection 150, as well as an analysis of the largest functional groups of charms and a chronological listing of the materials, the names of charm-book owners, folk performers, as well as collectors and contributors (presented chronologically by date of contribution).
The book has been prepared within the basic budgeted sub-programme 05.04.00 "The Krišjānis Barons Cabinet of Folksongs" of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia, as well as the post-doctoral project of the European Regional Development Fund "Digital catalogue of Latvian charms" (No. 1.1.1.2/ VIAA/1/16/217) and also published with the financial support of the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia.
It must be better than “Latvju dainas”. The creation of the academic edition “Latviešu tautasdziesmas” in 1950’s–1970’s
In the 1950’s, in order to get permission for the publication of the largest Latvian folksong collection, the folklorists of the Institute of Language and Literature had not only to comply with the ideological expectations of the Soviet rule but also consider the requirement that the new edition must be better than the first complete publication of Latvian folksongs – “Latvju dainas”. The objective of the seminar is to discuss the creation of the academic folksong edition as a dynamic process, which was influenced not only by the Soviet ideology but also by the policy and bureaucracy of the Academy of Sciences and the scholarly goals of its compilers.
Literatura.lv in Minstere
From August 17 to 22, the team of the ILFA’s (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art) literature vortal Literatura.lv spent an active week at the Latvian Center in Münster (LCM) working with the Münster archive of the Latvian Community in Germany (LKV), supported by the Baltic-German University Office (Baltisch-Deutsches Hochschulkontor) in the project "Latvian Writers in Exile: Research, Selection and Digitization of Documents and Photographs of the Latvian Center in Münster" (project leader, head of the Literature Department and content editor of Literatura.lv Māra Grudule).
CFP: Socialist Folkloristics. A Disciplinary Heritage
The international conference "Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage" will take place on 28–31 October 2020 in Riga, Latvia.
You can apply until May 1, 2020 by sending to socfolk@gmail.com abstract of your presentation, no longer than 200 words, professionally edited for publishing; BIO, stating your affiliations and interests in no more than 50 words.
Read more...
