LIBEURO 2015 - European Conference on Literature and Librarianship

LibEuro2015 Conference Theme: “Power: Text and Context”
Power remains one of the most contested, debated, omnipresent yet ungraspable of concepts. While the fact of power remains constant, changes in political, social, economic and cultural conditions require us as scholars to periodically take stock of, analyze, and trace the workings and origins of power. And while it has long been accepted that literature and literary activity have never been immune to the functions and effects of power, new alignments in public and private spheres require us to interrogate how textual production, reception and study construct and resist power.
Literary power can be seen in books about power; moreover the act of reading itself can be seen as an act that grants power to the reader. Similarly, interpretation is an act of power over the text, while theories of interpretation hold power over the intellect and imagination of the reader. Those who teach, research and curate texts also exercise power, though how this power is wielded is colored by perceptions of those within and without academia. For students, the literature teacher is a figure of power who gets to select what is read and studied, as well as how it is read and studied.
Power can also seem too large and unwieldy a concept to gain any purchase on, thus any analysis of power can create a sense of powerlessness, not to mention dissatisfaction at the necessarily arbitrary nature of academic analyses. But choosing which aspect of power to analyze is an act of power in itself, one that invites further interrogations of the moral and ethical dimensions of power.