INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE:
INSTITUTE OF LITHUANIAN LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE, GROUP OF COMPARATYVISTIC STUDIES
THE PHENOMENON OF BEAUTY AND ITS HORIZONS
LITHUANIA, VILNIUS, JUNE 17-19, 2009
The transformation of the standards of beauty has three domains: first appears within the limits of a single cultural tradition and its various arts (literature, poetry, painting, dance, music, etc.) wherein arise the transformations when newly created images replace the old and become new standards. Second, diverse and distinct cultures have their own conceptions of beauty and the ways the standards are transformed. Third, the encounter of various cultural traditions and the appropriation of standards by one from the others. This is obvious in the context of contemporary globalization where, quite frequently, Western artists exhibit their own current aesthetic standards and regard the arts of other cultures as “exotic beauty.”
It would seem that the standards of beauty could range from Platonic search for “beauty in its essence” all the way to a total personalization where beauty is regarded as purely a matter of subjective taste. Yet this traditional range for conceiving beauty is inadequate, since none of the limits of this range is valid: within the total range, there is a constant mixing of the aesthetic phenomena of beauty with conceptions external to art, such as “morality,” “metaphysics,” “ontology,” and even “spirituality.” The aim of the conference is to understand various artistic styles and cultural standards of beauty despite all “external” impositions. Thus every concept of beauty must be understood in the context of its own culture and historical period. Other types of interpretation would be misleading since they might easily attribute inappropriate standards of aesthetic beauty to arts of other cultures and historical periods and thus misunderstand their standards. Even such claims that standards of art range from Plato’s absolutism to the absolute subjectivism of the twentieth century belong to the West and need not be valid elsewhere.
One important question of the conference focuses on the way specific social, regional, national standards of beauty affect global conceptions of what is beautiful. This suggests that, without having any intentions to do so, artists may create not only changing standards of beauty in their own works but also changing standards on a global arena.
Proposed topics
Beauty in archaic art
Concept of beauty in culture, mythology and folklore of the Baltic tribes
Concept of beauty in primordial cultures (African and Oceanic)
Concept of beauty in Indian and Far East aesthetics and art
Transformation of the concept of beauty in Western art-from Antics to Post Modern
Concept of beauty in Lituanian literature
Concept of beauty in literature of other European countries (Slavic, English, German, French, etc)
Beauty in the art of cinema, theatre, performance
The charm of sounds and silence, or the concept of beauty in music
Beauty and sacredness
Fundamental researches of the issue of beauty
Concept of beauty in the modern and post modern philosophy, aesthetics, etc
Concept of beauty in literature
Beauty in the media of psychological, psychoanalytical categories
Pop culture and the concept of beauty in contemporary society
The conference is organized by: head prof. Algis Mickūnas (USA, Ohio University), members: prof. hab. dr. Gražina Daunoravičienė (LMTA), prof. hab. dr. Algis Kalėda (LLTI), assoc.prof. Rūta Brūzgienė (LLTI), assoc.prof. Silvestras Gaižiūnas (LLTI), dr. Jekaterina Lavrinec (VGTU), dr. Agnieška Juzefovič (VGTU), Elena Sakalauskaitė (VU).
Working languages of conference: English, German, Lithuanian. The articles will be published in a reviewed edition.
You are kindly invited to submit your proposal with title and a short summary (approximately 1000 characters with breaks) until 20th of May. The summaries can be sent to the following addresses: Algis Mickūnas , Rūta Brūzgienė (mob. 860087503), Gražina Daunoravičienė (mob. 868781682), Elena Sakalauskaitė (mob. +37067888111), Agnieška Juzefovič (mob. 862071460).
CONFERENCE WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE INSTITUTE OF LITHUANIAN LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE, VILNIUS, ANTAKALNIO ST. 6.
