Call for papers

The 6th Annual Lotman Conference at Tallinn University
Tallinn, 30 May — 1 June 2014
BIOGRAPHIA SUB SPECIE SEMIOTICAE

The Estonian Semiotics Repository Foundation is inviting submissions for the 6th Lotman conference at Tallinn University, 30 May – 1 June 2014. It is the tradition of our conferences to take inspiration from the scholarly legacy of Juri Lotman. This year the conference engages with Lotman’s texts that approach the problematics of (auto)biographical signification semiotically: “The Poetics of Everyday Behaviour in Eighteenth-Century Russian Culture“, “The Decembrist in Daily Life: Everyday Behaviour as a Historical-Psychological Category”, “Concerning Khlestakov”, “'Agreement' and 'Self-Giving' as Archetypal Models of Culture”, etc.

The possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• ·         Semiotic mechanisms in the production of (auto)biographical texts;
• ·         “Right to a biography” as a cultural code;
• ·         Poetics, mythology, and semiotics of everyday and public behaviour: genres, styles, plots, poetics, masks and personae;
• ·         Author’s life story as a cultural phenomenon; means and goals of the mythologisation of author’s life story;
  

• ·         Devices for constructing the biography of a fictional character; the role of characters’ biographical details in fictional texts;
• ·         Biography and hagiography: semiotics and poetics;
• ·         Autobiography and confession: semiotics and poetics;
• ·         The issue of reliability in (auto)biographical texts;
• ·         (Auto)biographical texts as operative elements in the semiosphere;
• ·         “Biographism” in the study of culture;
• ·         Biography of Juri Lotman: topical questions in recent research.

We are also interested in discussing the methodological aspects of large projects concerning biographies and life writing, such as: “Russian Literary Authors 1800—1917: Biographical Encyclopedia (Bol’shaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopediya); “Right To a Name” (“Меmоrial” centre); “Estonian Life Stories and Oral History” and “Estonian Life Stories As Carriers of Cultural Memory” (Estonian Literary Museum); “China Biographical Database Project” and “African American National Biography Project” (Harvard University), as well as the experience of authors of scholarly biographies, editors of different biographical chronologies, etc.

Submissions:

The conference welcomes submissions in English and in Russian, the two working languages of the conference. The submissions should be sent via e-mail no later than 1 March 2014 and include:

• The title and a short abstract of the proposed presentation (up to 2000 characters with spaces)
• A short CV (name, surname, institutional affiliation, scholarly degree, description of scholarly interests — up to 2000 characters with spaces).

The organising committee will choose the presenters based on scholarly merit and thematic relevance for the conference.  The results will be announced via e-mail no later than 15 March 2014.

The submissions in English should be sent to Piret Peiker: piretpeiker@hotmail.com
The submissions in Russian should be sent to Tatjana Kuzovkina: tatjana.kuzovkina@gmail.com

Speakers shall be allocated 30 minutes in total: 20 minutes to deliver the presentation and 10 minutes for discussion.

Useful information:

The conference will take place in the Mare building of Tallinn University, 5 Uus-Sadama Street, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia.

There is no conference fee. All conference events are free of charge for the presenters. The conference cannot offer any grants for travel or accommodation. However, please do not hesitate to turn to us, if you need advice making your arrangements.

If you need a visa to travel to Estonia, please contact Mikhail Trunin: mikhailtrunin@gmail.com

Organising committee of the 6th Lotman conference at Tallinn University:

Rein Raud (chair),
Мarina Akimova, Boris Egorov, Tatjana Kuzovkina, Mihhail Lotman, Vadim Parsamov, Piret Peiker, Igor Pilshchikov, Мaria Smorževskihh-Smirnova, Mikhail Trunin