Press Release 21/2023

Literary Judgement and the Fora of Criticism (6-10 June 2023)

Location: Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Stockholm

In the 18th century, debates about literature were the litmus test of the public, where educated citizens exchanged their views, constituted public opinion, and promoted narratives everybody could supposedly share. In contrast, those who judge literature now rely on many criteria of evaluation, which are often expressed vaguely as aesthetic complexity, significance, and social or political relevance and adequacy. The conference »Literary Judgement and the Fora of Criticism« thus focuses on the analysis of different attitudes, criteria, and goals that have inspired literary judgement in recent decades. In what ways may representatives of the many different milieus reach common ground for the sake of literature, its readers, and the growing global public?

The conference comprises 25 speakers, writers, critics and scholars, from around the world, among others Phillipa Chong (McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada), Christopher Odhiambo Joseph (Moi University, Kesses, Kenya), Daniel Kehlmann (author, Berlin, Germany), Irina Prokhorova (critic, New Literary Observer Publishing House, Moscow, Russia), Adam Soboczynski (critic, »Die Zeit«, Hamburg, Germany), Zeruya Shalev (author, Haifa, Israel) and Xu Xi (College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, USA). Mats Jansson, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg, and Sandra Richter, Director of the German Literature Archive Marbach, will open the conference.

Programme: https://www.dla-marbach.de/forschung/tagungen/

The conference will be conducted in English. It will be streamed via YouTube and will also be available via online link:
7th June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GC6unK58KU 
8th June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEh8a-wLUT0 
9th June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ndNK7-6o-I

In conjunction with the University of Gothenburg, the CNRS-Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, the University of Iceland and the University of Virginia. Funded by the Nobel Foundation.

German Version