19–20 October 2023, Centre for Transnational Literary Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow

The aim of this research seminar is to investigate South Africa’s multifaceted engagement and dialogue with Central Europe – its history, culture, literary production, and heritage. How have South Africans understood, perceived, and conceptualised Central Europe over the decades? Has its singular status, famously theorised by the likes Milan Kundera, Claudio Magris, or Maria Todorova, been sufficiently acknowledged in South Africa? Or, alternatively, has Central Europe suffered from being considered part of the so-called “East,” a mere supplement to the study of Russian/Soviet influences on South Africa? What kind of role has it played in South African cultural production and how to explain Central Europe’s appeal to a number of iconic South African writers and artists such as J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, or William Kentridge? Was the creative conversation with Central Europe a way to de-provincialise one’s own oeuvre? Should it be understood as an attempt to seek alternative alliances and genealogies, as the search for phantasmagorical home? What are the possible parallels between South Africa and Central Europe (e.g. their hinternationalism; being subjected to repeated acts of colonisation; subversive “provincialism” and “peripherality”)? Finally, has the South African–Central European comradeship been a reciprocal relationship?

Proposals for 20-minute presentations, consisting of a brief biographical note (including academic title and institutional affiliation) and a 150-word abstract, should be sent to robert.kusek@uj.edu.pl by 23 July 2023. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 7 August 2023. The research seminar will be held on 19–20 October 2023 at the Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.