Date: 6-8 of October, 2010

Venue: Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Vilnius University Gender Studies Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
Confirmed key-note speaker: Sidonie Smith (University of Michigan)

When they become the subjects of literary analysis, letters, memoirs, diaries and other forms of autobiographical writing raise a wide range of theoretical issues. How might the borderline between literature and non-literary writing, between fiction and “autobiographical truth” be drawn? Was there a time when autobiographical writing was naive and non-literary? In what ways do literary and other writing conventions weave themselves into autobiographical forms and vice versa? Is the existence of autobiographical theater, photography, art and cinema possible? The organizers of this conference invite participants to look for new definitions of the autobiographical – to create new contexts for these “last volumes” and to explore new ways of working with this material.

Preliminary Topics:

Autobiographical writing: definitions and analytical possibilities
Literary aspects of autobiographies, letters and diaries
The creation of the subject/identity in autobiography
Gender definitions/self-definitions in autobiographical writing
Autobiographical art
Performative aspects of the autobiographical subject
The conference will not deal with questions related to the role of autobiography in fiction.

The first day of the conference will be devoted to presentations by invited guests and workshops on autobiography studies. Doctoral students will be able to participate in workshops, and their papers (about 10 000 characters) would be discussed under the supervision of one of the invited guests.