68^th WORLD CONGRESS OF INTERNATIONAL P.E.N.
25^th September – 2^nd October 2001
OHRID, REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

CONGRESS THEMES

Borders of Freedom / Freedom of Borders
The Future of Language / Language of the Future

    The themes of the Congress have been chosen with a view to building on the affirmation of the values of literatures and languages across national and international divides, of extending the opportunities for writers to come together to talk about the necessity of maintaining dialogue and free exchange: how may literatures written in minority languages be sustained and promoted? How may the valuable contribution of such literatures to the wider world be best supported and expressed? How may the dialogue and exchange of literature be carried forward across boundaries within regions of conflict? Borders of Freedom / Freedom of Borders will provide the opportunity to examine the ways in which writers may reach out beyond their own particular national, cultural or linguistic ‘borders’ to enrich and invigorate, while at the same time retaining the linguistic and cultural identity provided by the ‘borders’ of their own communities. The seminar The Future of Language / Language of the Future, building on International P.E.N.’s Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee work on both the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights and the International Translation Project, will enable the discussion to be carried forward while focusing on the specific question of minority languages.
    These themes are approached through other literary sessions during the Congress, including a seminar on Women Writers, a seminar of Young PEN [young writers] in the Balkan region, a discussion of Slavic Literatures in the Balkans, and both Regional and International Poetry Readings, in which the poems will be read in several languages.


1. BORDERS OF FREEDOM / FREEDOM OF BORDERS

Guidelines:

- Borders, their many meanings, ambiguity, and interpretation: understanding, dialogue or conflict of interpretations;
- Archetypal and actual symbolism of borders;
- Historicity of borders;
- Borders of identity (cultural, ethnic, linguistic, state, etc.);
- Transcending borders as a form of existential, creative, and spiritual freedom;
- Borders as dynamic category: individual, traditional, regional, universal;
- Paradox of borders: borders between interdictions/taboos and freedom;
- Overcoming civilisational differences as a precondition of free borders and freedom from xenophobia;
- Respect of borders as a condition for liberation from borders;
- Cultural transfer and dialogue as a recognition of freedom of borders and borders of freedom;
- Humanism as a symbolic border resisting dehumanization;
- Borders: ideal or prejudice?;
- Borders and freedom of literature(s).


2. THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE / LANGUAGE OF THE FUTURE

Guidelines:

- Language as a projection of mankind;
- Language as a subtle and selective memory of the past;
- Institutionalisation of memory in the contemporary world;
- The tragic hubris of the abuse of language;
- The discord between Word and Work, between speech and act;
- Anxiety and the empty discourse of politics;
- Proliferation of language(s) as an irreversible process;
- Global systems and future position(ing) of small languages;
- Survival in the shadow of the Great Language;
- The future: utopia or anti-utopia; the future as reality;
- Interpreting the language of the future: between the explicit and the hidden;
- Dis/integration of the language of the past within the language of the future;
- From the discourse of danger to the creation of evil;
- Propaganda and psychological war sourced through the power of information and image;
- Language as prejudice and as freedom;
- Language of the future as language of understanding, translation and mediation.


3. WOMEN WRITERS

Guidelines:

- Phenomenon, paradox or grotesque: the 20^th century experience minimizes and relativizes the differences between sexes, cherishes gender rhetoric and hermeneutics, but at the same time explicitly affirms the discourse on women and by women;
- Can the 20^th century be called “the golden age” of feminine writing?
- Transcendence of the traditional polarization: female literature vs. male literature;
- Feminine writing as a projection of the Lyrical Principle and male writing as a projection of the Epic Principle;
- Nostalgia for the gender differences as opposed to the poetics of the hybridization of sexes;
- Dominant themes in women’s writing: man as a theme;
- Re-coding the borders between genders in literature;
- Literature as freedom from limitations imposed by sex;
- Development or restriction of women’s freedoms in the Balkans and the Mediterranean? Can these be paradigms for the countries of the world?


4. SLAVIC LITERATURES IN THE BALKANS

Guidelines:

- Slavic literatures in the Balkans now;
- Can South-Slavic literatures (still) belong to a common poetic system with a Slavic character?
- Removing the borders of literary subsystems: Slavic literatures in the Balkans as a part of European and world literatures.
- Dialogue for establishing minimum common literature curricula;
- Reaffirmation of dialogue, translation, reading and reception of South-Slavic literatures;
- Restoration of respect for literary values.


5. YOUNG P.E.N.

Guidelines:

- Revitalization of International P.E.N. membership as a permanent process;
- Integration of young writers into International P.E.N.;
- Realization of value systems;
- The literature of young authors as a new aspect of the world, new reading of the past, the present and the future;
- Permanent removal of the borders of young literature;
- Young P.E.N. activities, a sign of freedom from prejudice and acceptance of new paradigms.

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