Labour History News
Writing Under Socialism: Past and Present
Papers are invited for an international conference entitled Writing under Socialism to be held at the University of Nottingham on 11-12 July 2008.
Using a comparative approach that crosses disciplines and continents, this conference asks for a re-evaluation of the position of writing under socialist states past and present using new material, theories and methodologies that have come to light since 1989. We invite contributions from researchers working on literary production in China, Cuba, the GDR, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in order to initiate a dialogue between researchers working in very different fields.
Possible areas for discussion include, but are not restricted to:
- Interaction of writers with Party functionaries.
- Role of publishers, periodicals, booksellers and literary critics as mediators between the state, writer and reader.
- Role of Writers’ Unions as mediators between state and writer.
- Methods of censorship and the interaction of external and internal pressures on the censorship of texts.
- Socialist cultural policy in theory and in practice.
- Definition of writer/intellectual under socialism.
- Role of mass cultural movements in literary production and consumption.
- Success of mass cultural movements and their effect on participants.
- Writing outside of the state apparatus: underground and unofficial literary movements.
- Theoretical approaches to the study of writing under socialism
School of Modern Languages " Cultures
Trent Building
University of Nottingham
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