[ Red_Square Sofia ]

Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Block Countries
April 6-7, 2006
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

This is the first scholarly gathering in the United States dedicated to the
specific practice of underground anti-establishment literature and artistic
activities that flourished from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. The
conference aims to assemble experts in the field from both the US and abroad
to offer a comparative study of the variety of literary and artistic
practices in the Eastern Block countries, and to offer a critical approach
towards their national specificity and formative socio-political factors.

The conference is a bi-partite event. The first part will comprise a
day-long Samizdat workshop (first of its kind in the US) led by
representatives of the largest collections of Samizdat materials, including
the Open Society Archives in Budapest, who will present and discuss their
holdings, followed by a reading of Vaclav Havel's 1978 underground play
"Protest."

The second day will comprise scholarly presentations organized in three
panels with three speakers each. The presenters will include leading
scholars from Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Canada, the Czech Republic, and
the US, as well as representatives of the Penn community (including faculty
and a graduate student in Art History).

The panels will feature original article-length (20-30pp.) papers by each
participant, which will be pre-circulated to conference participants and
audience members. Participants will present 20-25-minute summaries of their
papers, making possible a compact event with time for productive discussion.

Contact person: Liliana Milkova,
lmilkova@sas.upenn.edu
More and updated info: HERE