Academic conference “What Makes Literature? Redefining Realism, Poetics, and Belonging.”

From 16 to 18 September, the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (UL) will host in Riga an international academic conference “What Makes Literature? Redefining Realism, Poetics, and Belonging.” The conference is one of the central events marking the 80th anniversary of the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art.

“At a time when the creation, dissemination, and reading of literature are profoundly shaped by digital media, artificial intelligence, political upheavals, migration, and new forms of social communication, the conference will highlight literature’s capacity to generate, reflect, and question notions of reality, identity, and belonging,” emphasises Eva Eglāja-Kristsone, Director and Leading Researcher of the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art. “The conference will bring together researchers of literature, culture, art, media, memory, and identity processes. Such an interdisciplinary perspective will allow literature to be examined both as an aesthetic phenomenon and as a social and cultural practice interacting with history, politics, technology, collective memory, and shifting forms of belonging.”

Over three days, the conference will gather around 70 scholars of literary and cultural processes from Europe and other parts of the world, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between literary studies, cultural studies, memory and identity research, digital humanities, art studies, and media studies. From diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, participants will address a seemingly simple yet fundamental question: what makes literature.

Programme: realism, poetics, belonging, and digital culture

The conference programme is structured around four interconnected thematic strands: mapping realism; poetics and literary forms; belonging and identity; digital literature and reading cultures. Papers will examine realism from the 19th century to the present, analysing its connections with naturalism, modernism, socialist realism, postcolonial and post-Soviet experience, ecological thinking, memory studies, multilingualism, and digital culture.

Participants will discuss literature’s role in shaping individual and collective identity, in forming national and cultural canons, in preserving and transforming memory, as well as literature’s relationship with ideology, historical traumas, diaspora, migration, and social change.

The programme also includes questions about the future of literature in the digital age: readers’ perceptions of artificial intelligence authorship, the representation and interpretation of literature in video games, screen-mediated reading practices, and transformations in contemporary publishing.

The geographical and intellectual scope of the conference will enable Latvian and Baltic literary experience to be viewed in a broader comparative context. Papers will juxtapose Nordic, Baltic, Central and Eastern European, Latin American, and other literary traditions.

Internationally recognised scholars of comparative literature, realism, multilingualism, cultural memory, and literary theory will participate from the University of Helsinki, University College London, University of Nottingham, Aarhus University, University of Luxembourg, University of Copenhagen, University of Gothenburg, Uppsala University, Tallinn University, University of Tartu, Vilnius University, University of Warsaw, Charles University in Prague, University of Stuttgart, Bielefeld University, University of Freiburg, University of Regina (Canada), Federal University of Maranhão (Brazil), and other academic institutions.

Three keynote lectures

Three internationally acclaimed scholars will deliver keynote lectures in Riga, representing complementary perspectives on realism, comparative literature, language, and cultural memory.

The academic programme will open on Wednesday, 16 September, with a keynote lecture by Professor Riikka Rossi (University of Helsinki), “Realism, Naturalism, and Emotions: Tracing the Moods of Realism,” in which she will explore realism and naturalism through the lens of emotions and literary atmospheres, expanding the understanding of how literature shapes and enables the experience of reality.

On Thursday, 17 September, Rosa Mucignat (University College London) will deliver the keynote lecture “Mother Tongues and Vernaculars: Realism in ‘Small’ Languages,” focusing on linguistic diversity, multilingual literary cultures, and the relationship between realism, language, and community. These questions are particularly significant for the study of smaller European literatures and transnational cultural processes.

On Friday, 18 September, Professor Dirk Göttsche (University of Nottingham) will present the keynote “Realism and the Politics of Memory: Competing Narratives of the Wars Against Napoleon in German Literature, 1813–2013,” examining the interplay between realism, historical interpretation, and memory politics across two centuries.

Latvian literature in international dialogue

A significant part of the programme will be devoted to Latvian literature and its connections with broader European and global literary processes. Researchers from the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, the University of Latvia, the National Library of Latvia, Daugavpils University, Rīga Stradiņš University, and the Art Academy of Latvia will analyse protorealism and realism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, socialist realism, exile literature, postcolonial experience, representations of urban and rural space, cultural belonging, ecodramaturgy, literary adaptations in theatre, and contemporary reading practices.

“Latvian literature will not be examined as an isolated national tradition. It will be placed within a broader discussion of realism, aesthetic innovation, ideological power, cultural memory, and belonging. Such a comparative and interdisciplinary approach highlights both the distinctiveness of Latvian literature and its significance in international humanities research,” notes Benedikts Kalnačs, Leading Researcher at the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art.

The conference “What Makes Literature? Redefining Realism, Poetics, and Belonging” has grown out of the collaboration between two research projects implemented at the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art: the project led by Dr. philol. Eva Eglāja-Kristsone, “Latvian Literature as Belonging: Personalities, Poetics, and Public Space” (LITBEL), which examines Latvian literature as a social and cultural resource by linking the study of poetics, personalities, and the canon with periodicals, public culture, contemporary reading habits, and the digital environment; and the project led by Dr. habil. philol. Benedikts Kalnačs, “Recovering Latvian Realism: Literary Innovation as a Search for Identity” (REALT), which reassesses Latvian literary realism in relation to aesthetic innovation, identity formation, postcolonial and post-Soviet experience, resilience, and social change. Particular attention is devoted to the diversity of so‑called peripheral realisms.

In the conference, the two researchers have combined the LITBEL and REALT research perspectives and international academic networks, linking questions of realism and belonging with poetics, identity, memory, public culture, and digital transformations.

Conference Organising Committee

The organising committee: Eva Eglāja-Kristsone, Benedikts Kalnačs, and Jānis Oga (UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art); Anda Baklāne (National Library of Latvia); Jeanne E. Glesener (University of Luxembourg); Zanda Gūtmane (Riga Technical University); Petra James (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); Mindaugas Kvietkauskas (Vilnius University); and Maris Saagpakk (Tallinn University).

Practical Information

The conference “What Makes Literature? Redefining Realism, Poetics, and Belonging”, open to all interested participants, will take place from 16 to 18 September in the Small Aula of the University of Latvia, Raiņa Boulevard 19, Riga.

The opening session will be held on Wednesday, 16 September, at 9:30 in the Small Aula of the University of Latvia.

Conference working language: English.

More information: https://ej.uz/kasveidoliteraturu

The conference is part of the Latvian Council of Science VPP project “Latvian Literature as Belonging: Personalities, Poetics, and Public Space” (No. VPP-IZM-Letonika-2025/1-0006) and the FLPP project “Recovering Latvian Realism: Literary Innovation as a Search for Identity” (No. lzp-2024/1-0341). The event is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, the Riga City Council’s business event co‑funding programme “Live Riga,” and the University of Latvia.