Events

Podiumsdiskussion und Lesungen mit Dovilė Kuzminskaitė, Hasso Krull, Eckhard Schumacher, Artis Ostups und Krista Anna Belševica

Tage baltischer Literatur
FLUCHTPUNKTE – OSTSEERAUMNARRATIVE
Der Ostseeraum mit seinen neun Anrainerstaaten ist nicht nur ein Speicher historischer Wendepunkte, die das eine verschwinden und das andere (wieder) auftauchen lassen, sondern auch für persönliche Erfahrungen und Erzählungen. Aber was bedeutet es, innerhalb oder ausserhalb eines literarischen Textes, zu «verschwinden»? Nur aus dem Blick oder ganz aus der Existenz? In dieser Podiumsdiskussion stellen Autorinnen und Autoren unterschiedlicher Generationen aus Litauen, Estland und Lettland kurze Ausschnitte aus ihren Werken vor, die sich mit dieser Frage auseinandersetzen oder sie spielerisch verdrehen. Gerahmt wird die Diskussion durch einen Einblick in aktuelle Forschungspositionen zu narrativen Konstruktionen von Wendepunkten im Ostseeraum.

Mit: Dovilė Kuzminskaitė, Assistenzprofessorin an der Universität Vilnius, Übersetzerin und Lyrikerin; Hasso Krull, Lyriker, Kulturtheoretiker, Kritiker und Übersetzer, Träger des Juhan-Liiv-Preises für Lyrik; Eckhard Schumacher, Professor für Neuere deutsche Literatur (Greifswald) und Sprecher des internationalen Graduiertenkollegs «Baltic Peripeties» mit Partnern in Tartu und Trondheim; Artis Ostups, lettischer Dichter, Kritiker, Herausgeber und Literaturwissenschaftler (Tartu); Krista Anna Belševica, lettische Schriftstellerin, Forscherin und Projektkuratorin, die derzeit an der Universität Greifswald über Revolutionen im Erzählen arbeitet.

Das Gespräch findet auf Englisch statt. Weitere Informationen zur Veranstaltung und zum Live-Stream: https://literaturhaus.ch/programm/

Joint Programme:
Interdisciplinary Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO); DFG International Research Training Group Baltic Peripeties – Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes; MA Programme History and Culture of the Baltic Sea Region

Series Sibelius im Kontext:
Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald, Theater Vorpommern, Universität Greifswald

Organisation:
Dr Verena Liu | International Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO)
Dr Arne Segelke | Master Programme “History and Culture in the Baltic Sea Region” (HiCuBaS)
Dr Alexander Waszynski | IRTG “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”

This panel presents ongoing research conducted by the International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”, examining turning points in history, politics, literature and science by applying the Aristotelian notion of peripety and neighboring concepts as means for analyzing narrative constructions of change. With Hans Blumenberg’s take on the “epochal threshold” as a starting point, the papers in this panel seek to make the case that the moment of turn itself remains imperceptible for those involved and thus requires a sophisticated hermeneutics, beginning its work only after the fact: An ‘epoch’ is a horizon of possibilities, which can be uncovered by naming that which has been and that which could not have been resolved. In order to get a hold of what a historical threshold might be, one has to sharpen the methodological strategies that allow for differentiating between a ‘not yet’ and an ‘already’.

Two case studies on the historiography and philosophy of 20th century body politics – definitions of disease brought forward by philosophers of science in East Germany, as well as ex post discourses on Scandinavian eugenic pasts – then provide evidence that only a multifaceted methodological approach allows for grasping those hidden liminal zones, which might be of highest relevance for modern society’s self-reflection and self-conceptualization.

Presenters (all Greifswald):

• Dr Alexander Waszynski Not yet and already: Hans Blumenberg on Epochal Thresholds
• Victoria Oertel Emplotment of Thresholds: Between Health and Disease
• Anna Derksen Thresholds of Self-Reflection: Societal Discourses on Scandinavian Eugenic Pasts

The Cuban-Soviet co-production “Soy Cuba” (1964) directed by Mikhail Kalatozov had long been forgotten until its international re-discovery in the early 1990s. Intended to visualize the oppression and uprising of the Cuban people, this highly sensual four-episode film by now counts as one of the milestones in film history, far and foremost because of its stunning acrobatic camera operation. “Soy Cuba” relates to Soviet propaganda cinema inasmuch as to the French Nouvelle Vague – and it is a document of its time: The film shoot began just one week after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This screening of the newly restored 4k version is hosted by the International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes” based at the universities Greifswald, Tartu and Trondheim. A short introductory note will elaborate on the aesthetic uniqueness inasmuch as on the screenplay by Enrique Pineda Barnet and the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who translated the historical turning points of the 1950s and 60s into a dense lyrical text.

Organisation and moderation:
Martina Zagni | University of Greifswald
Dr Alexander Waszynski | University of Greifswald

Once among the most debated topics of literary studies over a century ago, Tragedy qua literary and dramatic genre is once again having a moment. From Ato Quayson to Jennifer Wallace, a new generation of theorists have come forward to rethink this ancient, paradoxical genre in new global contexts. Writing now in a moment of particular isolation and suffering, what constitutes literary and dramatic Tragedy, and what is its purpose?

This panel solicits papers from across periods, geographies, and critical spaces to meditate on the genre of Tragedy. Papers might address: how have formal conceptions of Tragedy changed? How is Tragedy mediated through the critical lenses of feminism, anti/postcolonialism, and other area studies? What can today’s scholars make of the slippage between Tragic pessimism and optimism noted by the likes of Virgil, Nietzsche, and Césaire? And how, if at all, do contemporary scholars consider Tragic themes, such as the poetics of failure, hubris, hamartia, and anagnorisis? Do any of the “old rules” apply?

Organisers:
Catherine Culvahouse Fox, Ph.D. (Hong Kong)
Dr Alexander Waszynski (Greifswald)

Workshops providing both structured writing time and interactive sessions to support graduate students writing dissertations – typically called dissertation boot camps – are offered by many institutions across North America. Dissertation boot camps, which address the challenges of long-term, long-form writing projects, have been shown to decrease participants’ cognitive anxiety and procrastination, increase confidence and self-efficacy, and recognize and develop productive writing strategies. They bring together graduate students from multiple departments at different stages of the writing process, as the independent structured writing time and interactive sessions can support writers wherever they find themselves.

This two-day dissertation writing workshop is tailored to the specific needs of the PhD fellows in the IRTG Baltic Peripeties. Three of four sessions have a full hour of focused writing time, where fellows will work independently on their dissertation projects alongside others.

By shifting the focus from a spatial to a narratological approach, this panel tests out the notion of “peripety” as a new means of analyzing memoryscapes (Edensor 1997) in the Baltic Sea Region. Case studies by members of the International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties” (Greifswald – Tartu – Trondheim, 2021-2024) re-assess historical turning points through the lens of narration: How do local legends reassemble and thereby reconfigure the memory of historical storm floods as part of a plot? Which narrations about Königsberg circulate in museums and urban space of today’s Kaliningrad? How do different turning points interact, e.g. in current strategic political narratives and threat discourses, or in representing experiences of expellees in a post-Socialist memory culture in Poland and Lithuania? Where “event” and “narration” merge, memory culture approaches can be read in a new way: The re-evaluation of one moment as a turning point establishes the center of a plot that has a definite beginning and a definite end and thereby segments time and space in a meaningful way. As a category of production of meaning, “peripety” was first used in Aristotle’s Poetics. There, it denotes the turning point in a story, the event in which it becomes obvious that what is expected will not happen. As a neutral umbrella term for all sorts of turning points, it has considerable analytical potential that has yet to be exploited. For this novel approach, the Baltic Sea Region with its multiple layers of historical cesuras is a most fruitful research area.

Participants (all Greifswald):

• Douglas Ong An Old Home in a New: Remembrance of Post-Second World War Expulsions in Public Spaces
• Natalia Iost The Politics of Peripeties. ‘Narratives of Threat’ and the Emergence of a New Security Architecture in the Baltic Sea Region
• Laura Tack Storm Flood as a Peripety in the Creation Legend of the Curonian Spit
• Rezeda Lyykorpi The Myth of Königsberg in Kaliningrad. Reconfiguring History in Museums and Urban Space

Organiser and Chair:
Dr Alexander Waszynski (Greifswald)

Die Lehnwortforschung ist ein wichtiges Instrument zur Rekonstruktion der ethnokulturellen Wirklichkeit von Sprecher*innen verschiedener Sprachen. Neben der Archäologie ist sie insbesondere für die Erforschung vorhistorischer Kontakte zwischen ethnokulturellen Gruppen relevant. Mitunter können die Ergebnisse der Lehnwortforschung zeitverzögert archäologisch verifiziert werden, mitunter liefert die Linguistik jedoch auch die einzige Evidenz für vorhistorische Kontakte. Durch diese Konstellation und den früher stark betonten Faktor des (sprachlichen) Prestiges bei der Begründung von Entlehnungsmotivationen, geriet die Lehnwortforschung mitunter in vorläufige Konflikte mit historisch-ideologischen Annahmen und Vorurteilen. Dies äußerte sich seit den 1970er Jahren in einem Disput zwischen finnischsprachigen und deutschsprachigen Linguist*innen, der die Datierung der älteren germanisch-finnischen Kontakte betraf und die gegenseitige Rezeption teilweise einschränkte. So verblasste auch der Umstand, dass germanistische und finnougristische Forschungsergebnisse seit längerem immer besser miteinander korrespondieren. Der Vortrag beleuchtet die Rolle der Linguistik für die Rekonstruktion vorgeschichtlicher ethnokultureller Verhältnisse und zeigt, wie ein fruchtbarer interdisziplinärer Austausch zur Harmonisierung der Erkenntnisse verschiedener Disziplinen beitragen kann.

Santeri Junttila studierte Finnougristik, Fennistik und Baltistik an den Universitäten Helsinki und Tartu. Er wirkte an verschiedenen Institutionen in Estland, Mordwinien (Russland) und Kroatien und promovierte 2016 an der Universität Helsinki mit der Arbeit Die Kumulierung des Wissens und die Trends in der Lehnwortforschung: Die Geschichte der Erforschung baltischer Lehnwörter im Urfinnischen [Übersetzung des finnischen Titels]. Seit September 2019 führt er an der Greifswalder Fennistik die Tradition bedeutender etymologischer Forschungen fort und leitet das BMBF-Projekt Baltische und ostseefinnische Sprachen im vorhistorischen Kontakt (BOFIK). Bereits seit 2018 fungiert er überdies als leitender Koordinator des Projekts Etymologisches Online-Wörterbuch des ältesten finnischen Wortschatzes, das an der Universität Helsinki von der finnischen Kone-Stiftung finanziert wird.

Moderation:
Prof. Dr Marko Pantermöller (Greifswald)

In an attempt to combine analysis with the creation of new terms, the French literary theorist Gérard Genette (1930–2018) influenced the further development of narratology, and his discoveries have not lost relevance in the context of contemporary narrative theory. His theoretical views are based on diligence, discipline, and fighting spirit in the face of criticism from his most talented followers. The model of narrative analysis proposed by Genette makes it possible to see the trend in structural narratology, which focused more on the abstract level of the fable, while the study of the level of narrative and narration, that is undeniably represented by Genette himself, offered new concepts and possibilities for analysis. If the ideas of “high structuralism” experienced a sharp decline due to widespread criticism from poststructuralists, the terminology developed by Genette has remained relevant to this day. In the planned seminars, two important topics will be brought to the fore: 1) The original terminology developed by the Genette, which is considered to be one of the most accurate, created within the framework of narratology. 2) The distinction between mimesis and diegesis, the origins of which can already be found in the texts by Plato and Aristotle, but within the framework of Genette’s theoretical views, has turned out to be more extensive and modern than expected.

Jānis Ozoliņš, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Art Academy of Latvia, and researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia. He is the editor of the book Andra Neiburga: Language, Gender, Narrative and Image (2018, ILFA), and co–editor of the books Monta Kroma: The Experience and Reflexy of Soviet Modernism (forthcoming (2022), ILFA) and Queer Stories of Europe (2016, Cambridge Scholars Publishing). Currently, he is researching queer representation and masculinities in contemporary art and Soviet cinema, the historical development of narrative theories, and the literary heritage of writer Andra Neiburga. He composes music, performs as a pianist, and has released two music albums together with his band Sigma.

Organiser:
Krista Anna Zalāne (Greifswald)

The Baltic Sea Region is an area where changes mostly occur within a set of intertwining transregional parameters. By focusing on the aftereffects of transformations, this joint lecture series inquires about processes that lack the chance of a turn-around: from a single event to a concatenation of circumstances leading to an unforeseeable outcome. It can be difficult to draw a line between the permanent and the transient, but there are, certainly, damages or developments that are irreversible, in terms of material loss or environmental change. At the same time, the very idea of irreversibility has to be processed in language and media; it is part of a discourse and thus of history. In literary theory, the term ‘peripety’ signifies a reversal of action: How do narrations model and maybe alter the irreversible? How do geopolitical tipping points affect subsequent generations? In taking historico-political, narrative, ecological, material, and aesthetic changes into consideration, this summer term program seeks to bring conceptional clarifications, concrete case studies from a broad range of disciplines and regional studies approaches together.

Organisation and moderation:
Dr des. Verena Liu | International Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO)
Dr Arne Segelke | Master Programme “History and Culture in the Baltic Sea Region” (HiCuBaS)
Torsten Veit | Research Centre for Manors in the Baltic Sea Region
Dr Alexander Waszynski | IRTG “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”

For early modern historians, topography and geography were integral to the creation of narratives about the past. They became even more essential when few other historical sources were available, as was the case in large parts of the Baltic region. When Sweden became a major power in the seventeenth century, there was an accompanying revision of the kingdom’s history to suit its new status. This largely imagined history was written in part through a creative reading of the few textual sources and a careful examination of the land and its features, both natural and man-made, which complemented one another in a revisionist history of the kingdom.

Professor Kristoffer Neville is Chair at the Department of Art History, University of California, Riverside. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University (2007) and has been, among others, visiting professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. His work focuses on early modern culture in northern Europe, and particularly on the integration into a more coherent and synthetic art history of regions and traditions that is often being seen as distinct. His latest book “The Art and Culture of Scandinavian Central Europe, 1550-1720” (Penn State UP, 2019) investigates the cultural history of the courts in Copenhagen and Stockholm within northern Europe. He is currently working on a new project on topography as a basis for historiography, focusing on its significance for the formation of architectural history. Other ongoing interests include architecture around 1700, prints and publishing, and early architectural literature. In the summer term of 2022, he holds the Mercator Fellowship awarded by the University of Greifswald.

On Wednesday, 6 April 2022 the International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”, based at Greifswald, Tartu and Trondheim, celebrated its postponed Festive Opening and 1st Anniversary at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald together with colleagues and guests.

The IRTG was officially opened with participation of the Rector of the University of Greifswald, Professor Katharina Riedel, the Lord Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Greifswald, Dr. Stefan Fassbinder, and the Speaker of the IRTG, Professor Eckhard Schumacher of the University of Greifswald. Following the theme “Peripeties in Pictures”, participating researchers and doctoral fellows then presented fascinating insights into the different research projects and focal points across the three partner universities.

In the evening, Professor Kristoffer Neville, Ph.D. (Department of the History of Art, University of California, Riverside), who will spend this summer at the University of Greifswald as part of a Mercator Fellowship of the DFG Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties”, gave an exciting lecture on “Rewriting Old Narratives for a New Swedish Power: Topographical History in the Baltic Sea Region, 1550-1700”.

We thank all participants and guests for making this such a rich and inspiring event and look forward to further exchanges!

Putin’s attack on Ukraine has changed the world. What can the International Community do about it? Remote roundtable with Margit Bussmann, Sabine Otto, Espen Geelmuyden Rød, Andris Banka, and Natalia Iost.

The international community is struggling to find the best answers to Putin’s attack on Ukraine. The European Union, NATO, and member states have responded with diplomatic efforts, economic sanctions, weapons support, and increased military presence in the Baltic and Eastern European states. How will the current measures likely affect the behaviour of Putin’s regime? This roundtable discusses the different foreign policy tools based on insights from previous research. We evaluate under what conditions deterrence and sanctions can be successful and how civil society and public opinion in an autocratic political system can impact their effectiveness.

Roundtable participants:

• Dr Sabine Otto | Department for Political Science and Communication Studies, University of Greifswald & Department of Peace and Conflict Research (Uppsala University)
• Dr Espen Geelmuyden Rød | Department of Peace and Conflict Research (Uppsala University)
• Dr Andris Banka | Interdisciplinary Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (University of Greifswald)
• Natalia Iost | IRTG Baltic Peripeties (University of Greifswald)
• Moderation: Prof. Dr Margit Bussmann | Department for Political Science and Communication Studies (University of Greifswald)

Organisation:
Department of Political Science & Communication Studies

Organisation and moderation:
Dr Alexander Drost | International Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO)
Dr Cordelia Heß | Master Programme “History and Culture in the Baltic Sea Region” (HiCuBaS)
Dr Eckhard Schumacher | IRTG “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”

Organisation and moderation:
Dr Alexander Drost | International Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO)
Prof Dr Cordelia Heß | Master Programme “History and Culture in the Baltic Sea Region” (HiCuBaS)
Prof Dr Eckhard Schumacher | IRTG “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”