Postsecular Interpretations of Eastern European Literature and Art

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel engages a postsecular approach of theorists such as Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, and Slavoi Zizek and focuses on the usage of theological conceptual tools in the interpretation of secular works of literature and art. Elaine Willson analyzes Moshe Kublak's poem Raysn and his usage of pagan tropes. Andrzej Brylak talks about Stanislaw Lem's realist novel "Hospital of Transfiguration" and asks why a Jewish author turns to a Christian concept to talk about World War II. Third panel participant, Nadhedza Gribkova, employs Russian Orthodox theology to discuss the works of the Moscow Conceptualists of the 1980s. The overall goal of the panel is to investigate a common thread in analyzing secular works through religious perspectives so diverse as Christianity, Paganism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. More broadly, the panel asks about the relevance of the postsecular method in the field of Slavic Studies.

Sub Unit

• Religion, Philosophy

Chair

• Agnieszka Karolina Jezyk, U of Washington

Papers

• Rosy Buckwheat, Red Scythes: Soviet Jewish Abundance and Belonging in Moyshe Kulbak’s Raysn - Elaine Wilson, Columbia U

• Christian Conceptualization of Jewish Experience in Stanisław Lem’s Hospital of Transfiguration - Andrzej Brylak, U of Southern California

• Sobornost and Collectivisms: Mystical Undercurrents in the Analytical Projects of Moscow Conceptualism - Nadezhda Gribkova, U of Chicago

Discussant

• Agnieszka Karolina Jezyk, U of Washington