Call for Papers: Havoc and Healing (Uppsala, March 2020)

Call for Papers

Havoc and Healing: Insights into Human Action in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

Conference at Uppsala University, 26–27 March 2020

In the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, human action is frequently destructive, leading collectively to war and individually to murder or other forms of social and familial disruption. Concomitantly these authors offer some of the most incisive psychosocial insights available in cultural discourse into the motivations and dynamics of such behavior.

Focusing on Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, this conference will examine the full complexity of these insights, explicit in philosophical statements and implicit in the embodied human experience of the fictional characters.

Keynote speakers:

Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University
Donna Tussing Orwin, University of Toronto

We welcome paper proposals on topics such as (but not limited to):

• Depictions of war, crime and injustice
• Depictions of family, domestic happiness and discord
• Existential questions such as free will and the existence of God
• The relation of these questions to such formal aspects as narratorial and textual structures
• The question of “polyphony”: Without adducing the writer’s presumed position, does the novel in question privilege certain standpoints over others or do several standpoints remain equally valid?

The general format is a 20-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes for discussion. However, participants may propose another time-frame or format, e.g. a roundtable discussion on a particular topic. The conference will be held in English.

There will be no conference fee. Participants are expected to book their own accommodation and travel. Suggestions of hotels in Uppsala will be provided in due course.

Please send your paper title, an abstract (150–200 words) and a short bio (100 words) to the organizers Julie Hansen (julie.hansen@moderna.uu.se) and Torsten Pettersson (torsten.pettersson@littvet.uu.se) by January 10, 2020. Notification of acceptance will be given by the end of January.

This conference is organized with support from the Department of Modern Languages at Uppsala University (www.uu.se).