Placing Texts: Folk Narrative and Spatial Construction

Placing Texts: Folk Narrative and Spatial Construction
June 3-7, 2012, Tartu, Estonia

Graduate course of the Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts (GSCSA)

2 ECTS credits

Organized by the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, the Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts (GSCSA), Tartu Nefa Group and the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory (CECT).

The graduate seminar will be organised in the framework of the 6th Nordic-Celtic-Baltic Folklore Symposium “Supernatural Places”. The seminar discusses current research in folk narratives, their oral and literary forms past and present and relationship between tradition communities and their environment. It will also explore the supernatural dimensions of places in the cultural landscape and in the wilderness, as they are narrated and manifested in legends and other genres. In addition the seminar studies the localisation of narrative plots in environment, blending stories with social realities and other strategies for enchanting the world, opening the narrative space to the realms of fantasy and imagination.

Please find the program of the seminar and abstracts of lectures and seminars below:

Program

Abstracts

Organization

The seminar includes four lectures (45 minutes) and four seminars (90 minutes) by leading experts of folk narrative research:

Prof Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu),

Prof Terry Gunnell (University of Iceland, Reykjavik),

Prof Ulrich Marzolph (Enzyklopädie des Märchens, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen),

Prof Timothy Tangherlini (University of California, Los Angeles).

During the four seminars students will analyse texts and discuss selected articles. The readings will be made available for the registered participants in May 2012.

The seminar will also include the plenary lectures of the symposium “Supernatural Places”, delivered by Lina Būgiene (Vilnius), Terry Gunnell (Reykjavik), David Hopkin (Oxford), Irma-Riitta Järvinen (Helsinki), Bengt af Klintberg (Stockholm), John Lindow (Berkeley), Diarmuid Ó Giolláin (Cork/, Notre Dame, IN), Jonathan Roper (Tartu), Daniel Sävborg (Tartu), Timothy Tangherlini (Los Angeles) and Ergo-Hart Västrik (Tartu).

More information about the symposium is available here

Requirements for participation

Interested graduate students (maximum 20) can apply for the seminar by sending a letter of motivation (200-350 words) to by April 20, 2012. Students who are not members of GSCSA are required to add a short CV to specify their education and research interests. You will be notified of your participation by May 4, 2012.

The language of the seminar is English.

Participation in the course is free of charge; the accommodation and travel costs of the students of GSCSA will be reimbursed.

Program director: Ülo Valk

Seminar assistants: Katre Koppel, Pihla Siim, Siiri Tomingas-Joandi

Student coordinator: Helen Kästik, ktkdk@ut.ee

Additional information: ktkdk@ut.ee

Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts and the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory are funded by the European Union Structural Assistance.

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