The 16th Annual RAGCL Convention: "The Germanic Model in Romanian Literature”

THE ROMANIAN ASSOCIATION OF GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (RAGCL)

organizes

the 16^th Annual RAGCL Convention: The Germanic Model in Romanian Literature,

Sibiu, Romania, 10-13 July 2019

If the French model can be regarded as constitutive of institutional culture, as it is for Romanian literary culture, the German model prevails as the most important alternative model. Moreover, in certain Romanian territories and in certain epochs, the German model has indeed played the role of primary cultural model – it is, both historically and practically, the first Western model with which Romanian culture was faced in the 16^th century, as a result of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Unlike the French influence – almost entirely exerted indirectly and from a great distance – the German influence first presented itself in the immediate vicinity, by direct contact. The Saxon colonization of Transylvania began in the 12^th century, followed by that of the Swabians in the 18^th century and by other migrations from Styria, Carinthia and from the surroundings of Vienna towards the mining and industrial centers in Banat. This population, ethnically diverse in certain regions, was entirely Germanophone and made up the most important Western minority living in the midst of the Romanian majority, which proved to be receptive to the cultural and civilizational landmarks furnished by their fellow countrymen. It is important to highlight the fact that throughout the shared cultural Romanian-German history, this model was not confined to literary contact, influence and interplay; it has equally consisted in fundamental aspects of humanistic disciplines (philosophy, history, theology, sociology, anthropology, cultural theory, art theory, etc.), a substantial repertoire of theories and methods from the natural sciences, as well as a particular attitude towards “scientific thought” and indeed a work ethic which has often manifested itself as a “lifestyle” per se.

Thematic suggestions:

- Forms of religious Catholic and Lutheran culture in the Romanian Countries (16^th– 19^th centuries);

- German landmarks of Uniatism;

- Links between Școala Ardeleană (The Transylvanian School) and the German Aufklärung;

- German institutions, forms and “styles” in Transylvanian culture in the “long” 19^th century (up to World War I);

- The influence of German Romanticism on Romanian literature;

- Junimea (Titu Maiorescu, Mihai Eminescu, Ioan Slavici, etc.) as an expression of the German “catalytic model”;

- The emergence of the Transylvanian/rural Romanian novel in the spirit of German realism;

- The image of the neamț (German) in pre-modern and modern Romanian literature;  

- German expressionism in Romanian poetry and theater (Lucian Blaga, Aron Cotruș, Adrian Maniu, etc.);

- Romanian avant-garde connections to German avant-garde;

- Kakanian and Mitteleuropean nostalgia in Romania;

- Lebensphilosophie and the 1927 generation: Mircea Eliade, E.M. Cioran, Constantin Noica etc.;

- Trauma literature (war, the Holocaust, the Gulag);

- Bukovina as intercultural nexus: from Paul Celan to Norman Manea;

- Aktionsgruppe Banat and Herta Müller;

- The place and role of German poets within the 1980s generation;

- The image of the Romanian in German culture (starting from Klaus Heitmann);

- Migrant literature;

- The development of German studies in Romania and of Romanian studies in Germany; 

- The ramifications of the German cultural model (connections to other arts and discourses: science, politics, religion, etc.). 

We encourage submissions employing the following frameworks (though of course the list is not exhaustive):

- comparative and world literature;

- cultural and/or intercultural studies;

- postcolonial (including auto-colonial) studies;

- communist and postcommunist studies;

- transnational literary history; 

- diaspora studies;

- trauma studies;

- memory studies;

- imagology;

- mythocriticism and archetypal literary criticism;

- intermedial studies;

- evolutionist studies applied to literature;

- quantitative analyses;

- genre theory and poetics;

- ideological criticism;

- rhetoric, stylistics and linguistics;

- interdisciplinary approaches.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

- Prof. Henry Sussman (Yale University, U.S.);

- Prof. Andrei Corbea-Hoișie (“Al. I. Cuza” University, Iași/ The Socio-Cultural Research Institute of the Romanian Academy, Sibiu, Romania).

Conference languages: English, German and Romanian.

Paper proposals are to be submitted by 15 April 2019, at algcr2019@gmail.com and should contain the following: paper title, abstract of 1500-2000 characters in one of the conference languages and the authors’ institutional affiliation.  

Authors will be notified of paper acceptance until 22 April 2019.

Publication of papers: Presented conference papers will be published selectively and in revised form in the journal Euresis or in an edited volume at a prestigious international press.