Landscapes of Contact: Conceptual Reflexions and Case Studies from Ukraine and Beyond

Poster >

Language: English

Organised by: University of Regensburg, Ukrainian Catholic University, “Think Space Ukraine”

This collaborative workshop is designed to develop transregional approaches in cultural studies, in particular the field of Romance and Slavic studies. It evolved around research interests at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) and the University of Regensburg (UR). We set out to examine the bonds between people and places, in particular, we are interested in comparative research about landscapes and cityscapes as well as their manifold mediatized representations, i.e. concrete local arenas as perceived by humans and addressed in their communicative processes. They can be found in literature, film, theater, social media, video games etc. We understand those landscapes not only as outcomes of cognitive procedures; what is of no less importance for our research is their affective quality (Clough 2007, Berberich et al. 2015) – the physical, bodily, maybe emotional reaction a landscape evokes.

Programme of the conference

11. November: 9.30 am – 5 pm

Field 1a: Ecological and Spatial Zones

• Christiane Heibach: Atmospheric Experience and Ecological Crisis: The Concept of "Landscape" between Phenomenology and Aesthetic Activism
• Oleksandr Zabirko: The Zone of Exclusion as a Spatial and Ecological Concept in Films and Videogames [“S.T.A.L.K.E.R”, “Atlantis”, “La Zona”, etc.]
• Sofiya Filonenko: Martian Landscape as Zone of Contact in Contemporary Ukrainian Speculative Fiction

Field 1b: The Transformative Power of Landscapes in Literature and Film

• Vladyslava Moskalets: Jews in the Carpathians: The Transformative Power of Landscape in 20th Century Polish and Yiddish Literature
• Mirja Lecke: Inscribing Humanity into the Forest: Agnieszka Holland’s “The Green Border” (2023) 

Field 2a: Zones of Violence and Historical Memory

• Sabine Koller: Zones of Violence, Shadows of Shame: The Pogroms in Ukraine (1918-1922) in Yiddish Literature
• Oleksandr Pronkevych: The Atacama Desert in the Film Nostalgia de Luz (2010) by Patricio Guzmán as a Landscape of Contact Between the Past and the Present

Field 2b: Contact Zones of Conflict and Crisis

• Anne Brüske: The Darien Gap as a Violent Contact Zone in Audiovisual Documentaries
• Ralf Junkerjürgen: A Contact Zone of Crime and Violence: The Strait of Gibraltar in Spanish Audiovisual Fiction (El niño; La Unidad, etc.)
• Viktoryia Sukovata: Exile, Emigration and Violent Relocation of Scientists in Soviet Time and Memory in Public Space of Kharkiv

12 November: 9.30 am – 3 pm

Field 3a: National and Regional Imagination

• Alina Strzempa: Upper Silesian Filmic Trilogy by Kazimierz Kutz: National, Regional, or Ethnographic Landscapes?
• Bohdan Chuma: Lviv (Lemberg) and Galicia in the Representations of Spanish Reporters During the Wars of 1914-1919
• Bohdan Shumylovych: Three Films from the Three Hills: Interwar and Soviet Cinematic Imagination About the Carpathian Mountains
• Guido Hausmann (UR/ IOS): Industrial Region or Industrial Landscape? The Rise of Nikopol as a Center of Manganese Or Extraction in the Early 20th Century  

Field 3b: Imperial and National Borders

• Volodymyr Sklokin: The Ambivalence of the Northern Black Sea Steppe in the Russian Imperial Imagination: The Case of Vasilii Zuev's "Journey from St Petersburg to Kherson" (1787)
• Natalia Kovalchuk: "Occupation? - No, just visiting. Russian Travel Narratives About Lviv on the Brink of the Full-Scale War"

ROUNDTABLE / OPEN DISCUSSION