[spectre] CFP: Walter Benjamin in the East [esp. late and post-Socialist Eastern Europe] (Berlin, 7-9 Jul 22)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Caroline Adler
Date: Feb 4, 2022
Subject: CFP: Walter Benjamin in the East (Berlin, 7-9 Jul 22)

Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (ZfL), Jul 
7–09, 2022
Deadline: Mar 1, 2022

Conference: Walter Benjamin in the East – Networks, Conflicts, and Reception

Organizers: Caroline Adler (HU Berlin), Sophia Buck (Oxford/ZfL), 
Carolin Duttlinger (Oxford), Matthias Schwartz (ZfL)
Contact: caroline.adler at hu-berlin.de; sophia.buck at merton.ox.ac.uk

Submission Deadline: 1 March, 2022
Notification of Acceptance: 14 March, 2022
  The conference

This conference will trace the reception of Walter Benjamin’s thought 
throughout Eastern Europe, more specifically in a late and 
post-Socialist context. The dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the 
Soviet Union to some degree ended the rivalry of two contingent versions 
of modernity. Among other things, it catalyzed an intellectual and 
artistic engagement with the 1920s, directed at different authors, 
strands of Marxism and Materialism in the formative years of the 
communist project. As a historical materialist thinker and Western 
intellectual sympathizer, Benjamin is referenced and appropriated in the 
context of various Eastern European approaches that rework the legacy of 
the communist project, starting in the Glasnost period. Thus, the 2020s 
come as a fitting occasion to re-read and historicize late and 
post-Socialist retrospections of the 1920s. In doing so, the conference 
also focusses on the ways in which academic cultures govern implicit 
imaginaries of the East and West (division) that remain prevalent in 
theoretical practices until today.

The main objectives of the conference on Benjamin’s reception in the 
East concern three aspects: the different networks (1), the conflicting 
appropriations (2), and a collaborative historicizing of these 
theoretical transfers from scholars across Europe (3).

(1) First, the conference will aim at charting the reception of the 
works of Walter Benjamin in Eastern Europe. This approach includes the 
mapping out of different networks—ranging from research groups, artistic 
movements, and conferences to translations and involved publishing 
houses—and how they interacted over time. For instance, translations of 
Benjamin’s works into Slavic languages rose significantly in the 1990s 
and 2000s. From a comparative perspective, they can form the starting 
point for shifts in interpretation and reception. Here, it is 
particularly important to decentralize the Eastern European space: 
instead of reducing it to perspectives from Moscow, the conference will 
consider more complex dynamics and entanglements with other cities, 
regions, and countries.

(2) Second, the conference reflects on conflicts in the treatment of 
Walter Benjamin’s work based on their particular geo-cultural and 
political situatedness. Ranging from the conflictual editing process of 
Benjamin’s works in West Germany and the GDR to post-structuralist 
appropriations of Benjamin’s account of Soviet Russia (Derrida) and the 
uncovering of structures of complicity among Western travelers such as 
Benjamin (Ryklin), this conference will exemplarily uncover the role of 
Benjamin’s theorizing and the ways in which it was appropriated by 
post-Socialist endeavors across Eastern Europe.

(3) Third, Benjamin’s ‘afterlife’ in Eastern Europe is a possible focal 
point in order to rework the ways in which these conflicting theoretical 
and political perspectives from the East perpetuated implicit 
imaginaries of an East/West division in academic cultures (and vice 
versa). In other words, these theoretical transfers of Benjamin’s 
thought pose an important question: how did the processes of reception 
offer themselves to construct a unique and extremely diverse 
post-communist (as well as post-Marxist) heritage? The outlook for 
Benjamin Studies is to potentially uncover the ‘off-modern’ (Boym) of 
Walter Benjamin’s legacy. The benefit in reflecting on the role of the 
Humanities more generally lies in questioning how practices of 
theorizing partake in shaping geo-cultural imaginaries. The conference 
thus aims at reflecting imaginary constructions of an East/West border 
more generally, which are prevalent not only in European society but 
also implicit to and reinforced by specific Eastern/Western academic 
perspectives.

Topics may include but are not limited to
- Networks of Benjamin reception in Eastern Europe (Research groups, 
translations, artistic movements, conferences, involved publishing 
houses, political groupings)
- Interactions, geographical clustering, and influences between these 
networks
- Translations, publishing, and editions of Benjamin’s work in Slavic, 
Uralic, and Baltic languages
- Politics, networks, and transfers of Archives related to Benjamin 
between Eastern and Western Europe
- Editing processes and archival conflicts between East and West Germany
- Detectable asymmetries in the reception: geographical centers and 
peripheries in the Eastern bloc; differences and influences across 
national and linguistic borders
- Historical, local, cultural, and political occasions for a theoretical 
turn towards Benjamin
- Appropriations of Benjamin in political thought/activism in Eastern Europe
- Artistic Appropriation and Adaptation
- Theoretical Transfers/Transfers of Theory between Eastern and Western 
Europe (e.g., Benjamin’s concepts of materialism, dialectics, Marxism)
- Reworking of Socialist legacy: Post-Communism and Post-Marxism through 
the lens of Walter Benjamin
- Benjamin’s account of Soviet Russia and the Communist project as well 
as its contemporary reception and appropriation
- Implicit (geo-cultural) imaginaries, cultural and political 
stereotypes of the East/West divide in intellectual discourses 
concerning (and/or perpetuated through) Benjamin
- Comparative perspectives on scholarship and teaching of Walter 
Benjamin in Eastern and Western Europe (e.g. selection, framing, curricula)

Format and Application

The conference will take place 7–9 July 2022 at the ZfL in Berlin.

The conference consists of a three-day program with keynotes, scholarly 
papers (in English and German), and public panel discussions. We 
encourage contributions on the receptions of Benjamin in their 
(trans)nationally entangled networks, individual and institutionalized 
trajectories concerning both a longstanding and intense engagement as 
well as punctual, scattered, or recent developments.
We welcome scholars from all disciplines within the Humanities, History, 
and Social Sciences, as well as editors, translators, and artists to 
participate in the conference. The conference will be held in English 
and German (with the possibility of arranging translations in 
exceptional circumstances).

Please submit a proposal in English or German (up to 500 words) for 
presentations (up to 20 min) and a short bio until 1 March 2022 to 
sophia.buck at merton.ox.ac.uk and caroline.adler at hu-berlin.de. Please 
indicate whether you have a preferred section for your contribution (1, 
2, 3) and your potential travel destination. In addition to the 
provision of accommodation for the participants, travel grants are also 
available. Selected applicants will be notified by March 14.

The conference is co-funded by the OX|BER Research Partnership, the ZfL 
Berlin, and the International Research Training Group 1956 Transfer of 
Culture and Cultural Identity. German-Russian Contacts in the European 
Context.
The conference is currently planned as a face-to-face event in 
compliance with the required Covid-19 protection measures.
 
https://www.zfl-berlin.org/meldungen-detail/items/call-for-papers-walter-benjamin-in-the-east-networks-conflicts-and-reception.html
 
https://www.zfl-berlin.org/veranstaltungen-detail/items/walter-benjamin-in-the-east-networks-conflicts-and-reception.html


Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Walter Benjamin in the East (Berlin, 7-9 Jul 22). In: ArtHist.net, 
Feb 4, 2022. <https://arthist.net/archive/35832>.