News

On 28 November at 09:40, in Austrian Centre Library at Ilia State University (Room S507), the Institute of Comparative Literature of Ilia State University, in cooperation with the Research Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, will host an international workshop titled "The Jewish Theme in Georgian and European Literature". Evening sessions will be held at 4:00 PM at Ligamus Book House.

The objective of the workshop is to examine the literary representations of Jewishness in Georgian and European literatures from 1850 until the present. Drawing upon a transnational and intermedial perspective, the aim is to explore artistic, literary, musical and cinematographic examples in the context of the politico-racial anti-Semitism that emerged during the 19^th century, the Dreyfus Affair and its resonance in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, followed by the rise of fascisms, Nazism and the rupture introduced by the Shoah, as well as the state anti-Semitism of the Soviet Stalinist regime. 

The fundamental question that this workshop seeks to address pertains to the manner in which literature, in its broadest sense, encompassing its manifold forms of representation, portrays Jewishness within diverse social and national contexts. This raises the question of the response or capability of writing to respond to the rise of anti-Semitism through diverse historical circumstances, including our contemporary world. The objective of this workshop is to (re)examine questions on a vast subject that is still very under-explored in certain areas and from particular perspectives, such as minor literature and forgotten writers.

The primary research topics encompass, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Jewishness in literary history: an examination of both national and transnational contexts;
• The body in the marginalised space;
• Spaces of exclusion;
• Representation of Jewishness in an intermedial perspective;
• (Co)inhabiting common spaces;
• Examination of alternative forms of exclusion and marginalisation (for example, racial, social and gender-based) and their literary and artistic manifestations.

Working Languages: Georgian, English, French

Format: Hybrid

Organising committee

• Ilia State University: Atinati Mamatsashvili, Bela Tsipuria
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Arvi Sepp

Scientific committee

• Mzaro Dokhtourishvili (Ilia State University)
• Atinati Mamatsashvili (Ilia State University)
• Arvi Sepp (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
• Nino Pirtskhalava (Ilia State University)
• Bela Tsipuria (Ilia State University)

2025