Dear all, 
 
The Oxford Graduate Symposium is traditionally an internal event for postgraduates in German. However, this year the organisers would like to advertise a limited number of paper slots to postgraduate colleagues in German at other universities throughout the UK. Please see the Call for Papers below. A criterion for acceptance will be the fit with existing papers, including closeness to the topics chosen by the keynote speakers. 
 
Unfortunately, the organisers cannot cover costs associated with attending the symposium.  
 
The deadline for 300-word abstracts is 18th March 2011. 
 
Many thanks!


Seán Williams
on behalf of the three postgraduate organisers:

Birgit Mikus (Exeter College)
Michael Wood  (Wadham College)
Seán Williams (Jesus College)
 
LITERATURE AND INSTITUTIONS 8th International Summer Symposium, University of Oxford Friday, 6th May and Saturday, 7th May 2011
 
Keynote speakers: Professor W. Daniel Wilson and Professor Susanne Kord
 
''Jede große Idee, sobald sie in die Erscheinung tritt, wirkt tyrannisch; daher die Vorteile, die sie hervorbringt, sich nur allzubald in Nachteile verwandeln. Man kann deshalb eine jede Institution verteidigen und rühmen, wenn man an ihre Anfänge erinnert und darzutun weiß, daß alles, was von ihr im Anfange gegolten, auch jetzt noch gelte.'' (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
 
Goethe here suggests that institutions are instantiations of power, and that this power can take the form of tyranny. Throughout history, many institutions have exerted power (or at least a formative influence) over authors’ work – such institutions might include state organisations, bureaucracies, authorities responsible for censorship, courts, prisons, asylums, or formal educational institutions such as schools or universities, for example. All of these institutions have a physical dimension – uniforms, buildings such as offices, cells, wards or lecture theatres, etc. – and they are often represented in literature across a wide variety of cultural contexts in different ways. Literature may represent such “concrete” institutions in order to construct, bolster, attack or deconstruct them. The leading question of our symposium concerns the complex and varied relationship between literature and institutions. 
 
The term institution can also be applied to a range of other organized social practices, some of which adopt the vocabulary of more prototypical examples of institutions. Literary prizes, awarded by prize “juries”, might be understood as institutions; so too might publishing houses, museums, literary journals, and literary fairs, festivals and poetry slam. The literary marketplace as a whole, or literary critics and scholars as a collective, have also been conceived as institutions. When and how are these examples conceived as institutions, and what is the significance of this? How are such conceptions of literature within, outside or as a result of institutions formative of a literary text, of an author’s literary practice, political efficacy or cultural concerns, or of the reception of either text or author? 
 
In the above quotation, Goethe seems to align the concept of an institution with the emergence of an idea into the public realm and its resulting effect. In a similar way, we could ask to what extent literary thought constructs, or helps build, an institution; here we might question the roles and conceptions of the literary canon, or even the Goethe Institut. An institution can be understood as a metaphor for a customized social behaviour, a norm. Thus where do supposed free-thinkers or revolutionaries place themselves in relation to institutionalized practice, i.e. to what extent do they adopt, or lay the foundation for, literary customs and tradition-governed techniques or ideas? 
 
Institutions have long been thematized: Harry Levin and Austin Warren write of literature as an institution, and Peter Bürger conceives “Kunst als Institution”, of which literature is a part. Derrida has theorized “this strange institution called literature”; and sociological institution theory (which was especially developed and furthered in Germany) has already been applied to literature. However, the act of questioning institutions within German Studies in Britain has a contemporary relevance. Not only in Britain have quangos been axed and institutions of all kinds, including our own, are under scrutiny at a time of austerity; in Austria research institutions and think tanks especially have come under the eyes of the treasury as vast budget cuts are planned. 
 
The forthcoming symposium hopes for animated discussion about the topical theme of “institutions” and their explicit role in and for literature in German. A brief abstract (300 words) for papers in English or German of no more than 30 minutes addressing related questions or issues should be submitted to the convenors of the Oxford Modern German Graduate Seminar by 18th March 2011 at [log in to unmask]