Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Germany) and the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia

Date: 25 août 2014
Lieu: Riga

Deadline: 20 mai

Artist Karlis Padegs in 1932 created one of his key masterpieces – the painting “Madonna with a Machinegun”, encoding therein the heritage of the Renaissance culture and mass destruction tendencies of the European civilization in the 20th century. The painting was made in the interwar period and also in the period when the European communities coined the term “the Great War” – the name given to the First World War, which in the duration of four years exposed Europeans to a lengthy catastrophe, at the same time reflecting on the place of war in the cultural processes.

The conference is an invitation to participate in the interdisciplinary conversation on the phenomenon of war in European culture, focusing on the First World War experience. The conversation on the war will be held in Riga, Latvia, on 25 August 2014, when Germany attacked Belgium, destroying the ancient library with the Renaissance manuscripts and the Cathedral in the town of Leuven.

We will not limit ourselves to the chronological borders of the war and will seek the answers to the following questions, discussing the following subjects: 

Was the First World War a grotesque face of European modernization? Modernism in culture and politics 

Technologized death as a subject of creative work in Europe in the pre-war period, during the war and after 1918 – the European dialogue, conflicts and hybrids?

Waiting for the war and having fun… The First World War in the civilization discourses and mass culture

Futurism and the war – which one is to blame? The radical intellectualism before 1914

The frontline or the total war – extreme experience in the wartime

A woman and the war – participation and hierarchies

The art of war and during the war – the gap of realities and the creative work in trenches: art in the extreme circumstances

A word against the war and the war of words: poetry and a leaflet. A poet – politician.

Zero-length – cultural contexts of the collapses of empires and the space for creativity after 1917

Submissions of abstracts (up to 500 words), short bios, and email contact should be sent to Dr. Pauls Daija
pauls.daija@gmail.com
 by 20 May 2014.