Download LITHUANIAN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE ASSOCIATION,

LITHUANIAN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE ASSOCIATION,
LITHUANIAN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
International Conference
CULTURAL BRIDGES AND UNDERBRIDGES
September 23–24, 2016
Vilnius, Lithuania
By choosing the metaphors of “bridges and underbridges,” the conference further explores
the topic of encountering the Other and the Self, discussed at the European Network
for Comparative Literary Studies Congress in 2009 in Vilnius. The topic is still very relevant today
as we witness insufficient intercultural dialogue–both horizontal and vertical–which testifies to the
social role of comparative studies.
The main goal of comparative studies is to build bridges between the Self and the Other,
between countries, cultures, and civilizations, highlighting the similarities and explaining the
differences that show the uniqueness of those we compare. However, differences can become a
reason for misunderstanding, rejection, or even exclusion. Why in today’s global world, in the era
of cultural convergence, do tensions still remain? What do the on-going streams of economic
immigrants and war refugees mean to European national cultures? How do we tear down and rebuild bridges between tradition and modernity, between “high” and “low” culture?
The motifs of bridges and underbridges and their interaction in poetry, prose, drama,
memoirs, film, and art can become a leitmotif, a stereotypical image, or the most important element
in generating meaning. The bridge is the most common and the most pressing metaphor for cultural
integration today.
The conference invites linguists, folklorists, historians, art critics, and sociologists to explore
imaginary and real bridges and underbridges by discussing the issue of cultural integration. It
invites asking and seeking answers to questions: What facilitates and prevents cultural integration?
How does it work or how does it disappear? What kind of personalities can create a dialogue
between peoples and cultures? What types of dialogue can be found in literature and other arts?
Suggested Themes:
• The bridge as a symbol of cultural closeness (or distance?) and as a metaphor for dialogue;
• Bridges between East and West, North and South, between the center and the periphery, between
tradition and modernity;
• The bridge as an agent between two shores, two countries, and between the Self and the Other;
• Imaginary and real bridges;
• Linguistic bridges;
• Moveable and hanging bridges, bridges of Avignon, aqueducts and footbridges as symbols for
overcoming space and time;
• The metaphor of a burned and/or destroyed bridge;
• The antisocial but culturally significant space under the bridge: communities of the marginal,
outcasts, outsiders, and rebellious vagabonds;
• The transitional zone, which allows overstepping the boundaries; the motives of crossing the
bridge and of the initiation;
• Translation as a bridge between cultures; the role of a translator as a cultural mediator.
LITHUANIAN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE ASSOCIATION,
LITHUANIAN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
International Conference
CULTURAL BRIDGES AND UNDERBRIDGES
September 23–24, 2016
Vilnius, Lithuania
REGISTRATION FORM
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The Conference will be held in Lithuanian, English, French, and Russian.
Registration fee: 35 Euros.
Lithuanian Comparative Literature Association (LCLA)
T. Shevchenko Street 31–306, LT 03111, Vilnius, Lithuania
Tel. (370 5) 233 36 35; fax. (370 5) 233 52 99
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