Invitation to the symposium on landscape

Tomorrow, experts from not only the whole Czech Republic but also from abroad will gather in Fiducia for the symposium Landscape. The program is packed, and although it is a professional conference organized by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ostrava, it is open to the public. Therefore, don't hesitate to come and listen to interesting contributions on the topics of literature, art, and landscapes on Thursday and Friday. It takes place at the Fiducia antiquarian bookshop and club on September 6-7, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Organized by: Institute for Regional Studies FF OU and Department of Czech Literature and Literary Science FF OU

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM:
Thursday, September 6, 2012
9:00 AM–12:00 PM LANDSCAPE AND ITS IMAGE
Karel Stibral - Landscape, Nature, and Contemporary Aesthetics
Stanislava Fedrová - Landscape as a Cultural Construct
Gertraude Zand - Conquest of the Landscape – Czech Colonization of Subcarpathian Ruthenia
Jakub Češka - Landscape as a Neuralgic Point of Literary Discourse
Petr Tomášek - The Image of Landscape – Landscape in the Picture

PROBABLE LANDSCAPE
Alice Jedličková - Realistic Foothills: Modes and Modules of Representation
Martin Tomášek - Realistic Effect (based on the prose of K. V. Rais)
Ivana Taranenková - Constructing Landscape in Slovak Prose of the Second Half of the 19th Century
Richard Změlík - Želary – a Village That is Not on Any Map (Fictional Representation of Landscape and Space)

1:00 PM–5:00 PM LANDSCAPE IN THE HISTORY OF VISUAL CULTURE
Petra Trnková - The History of Landscape Formation on the Buquoy Estates from the End of the 18th to the Second Half of the 19th Century
Přemysl Mácha - The Image of Landscape in the Minds of Ordinary Inhabitants of the Countryside in the 18th and 19th Centuries as Exemplified by Folk-Painted Furniture
Lucie Vlčková - The Image of Landscape in 19th Century Landscape Painting
Martin Strakoš - Reflection of Industrial Landscape in Selected Phases of 20th Century Czech Art and Architecture

LANDSCAPE BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND NATURE
Jiří Svoboda - Landscape as the Author's Fateful Captivity (concerning the prose of J. Strnadel)
Iva Málková - Industrial Ostrava as a Landscape
Jan Vávra - Changes in Landscape Around the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant
Zdeněk Smolka - The Space of the Beskydy Landscape in the Poetic Texts at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Jan Nemček - Notes on the Concept of "Landscape" in the Understanding of Helena Jarošová
Stanislava Schupplerová - Interpretation of Landscape in Jeseniky Legends from the Perspective of Archetypal Criticism

Friday, September 7, 2012
9:00 AM–12:00 PM THE BIRTH OF LANDSCAPE?
Pavel Hájek - Baroque Landscape (Cultural and Anthropological Notes)
Jan Malura - Garden, Forest, and Mountain. Several Aspects of Landscape in Early Modern Literature (particularly Baroque)
Jakub Ivánek - Presentation of Spa Landscape in Early Modern Literature
Jan Kvapil - Baroque Landscape Concept in the Literature and Art of Northwest Bohemia
Veronika Faktorová - Scientific Concepts of Landscape and Romantic Literature

LOOKING ELSEWHERE
Petr Kopecký - Literary Landscapes at the Edge of the Continent in the Works of Robinson Jeffers and John Steinbeck
Alexandr Matoušek - The Landscape of Night, among others at Ivan Bunin
Vít Erban - The Theme of Landscape in the Poetic Composition Mountains and Rivers Without End by Gary Snyder

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Thesis of the Symposium:
Following the examination of urban space, we now intend to focus on the space of landscape.
We are interested in the birth and development of aesthetic interest in landscape, the role it played in the thinking of a particular historical epoch, and how it was artistically perceived, including various artistic movements and national literatures, as well as how landscape contributes to the genius loci of a specific place (e.g., industrial landscape in the image of Ostrava, baroque sacralization of space in perceiving Czech and Moravian pilgrimage sites, etc.). We want to focus on the methods of constructing landscape in literary texts (techniques of description, specific genres, transference of the current world into the world of language signs, the role of toponyms, etc.) and in visual works (technique of landscape painting, etc.). These methods appear to be mutable, culturally and socially conditioned, just as their reception varies over time.

While fields combining methods from the natural and social sciences have dedicated focused attention to the phenomenon of landscape in the past decade, and their research in the field of landscape aesthetics and interaction between humans and the natural world has led to scientifically substantiated general conclusions, disciplines in art scholarship have likely avoided these trends out of fear of the ideological coloring of the subject. Some – often interdisciplinary – conference proceedings can be counted among the pioneering steps in the mentioned field; as well as individual surveys capturing the author's conception of landscape. Landscape has thus become a fashionable topic without the necessary theoretical reflection accompanying it.

A completely different level of processing this issue can be observed since the end of the 20th century in the area of so-called cultural studies: "study of landscape," in which literary studies and art studies have also significantly engaged, has been established in various forms in the United States, Estonia, and elsewhere; for
the purpose of systematic investigation of landscape reflection, international scientific societies have arisen (e.g., ASLE - The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment established in 1992) engaging in considerable publication activity; numerous philological study programs explore the links between art and landscape; significant publications have emerged; and significant foundations support research and applied work in the area we are observing (NEEF – National Environmental Education Foundation, Washington; The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington, etc.), just as specialized journals track it (e.g., ISLE Journal – Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment published since 1993). We are also concerned with conveying these and similar impulses.

Just like in the case of the symposium dedicated to urban space, we see two main goals ahead of us: to create a discussion atmosphere in which different perspectives and concepts can fruitfully meet and influence each other; subsequently, to compile the individual contributions into a collective monograph that addresses the landscape space in a broad field of humanities with natural overlaps into scientific disciplines, where the connection would be the landscape represented by texts and images.

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THE EVENTS OF THE FIDUCIA ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSHOP AND CLUB ARE SUPPORTED BY: Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Open Society Fund Prague, Statutory City of Ostrava, OKD Foundation, City District of Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz, Foundation for Czech Architecture, Czech Chamber of Architects, MUDr. David Feltl, Law Office Jansa, Mokrý, Otevřel and Partners, Foundation Piece by Piece.