Tirsdag 4. til torsdag 6. mai har Litteraturhuset i Oslo invitert representanter fra tjue litteraturhus i Europa til seminar her i Oslo. Onsdag formiddag er dørene åpne for alle til foredrag om å arbeide med kultur og å lede et kulturhus, om litteraturhusmodellens potensiale og fremtid og den bosnisk-amerikanske forfatteren Aleksandar Hemon forteller om hvordan oversettelse av litteratur både kan bygge opp og bryte ned forestillinger om nasjonale myter.
Da Litteraturhuset i Oslo åpnet dørene i oktober 2007 var det etter inspirasjon og modell fra en tjue år gammel tysk tradisjon. De fleste større byer i Tyskland har et litteraturhus, og tradisjonen sprer seg til stadig flere land i Europa. Litteraturhusene på kontinentet har etter hvert blitt en naturlig del av byenes kulturliv; på samme måte som kinoer, teater og konsertarenaer.
"In Germany it has become obvious that all municipal sectors rather than just a group of people interested in culture benefit from these venues and that it is important to tap the full potential of a transnational network," skriver daglig leder for Literaturhaus Stuttgart, Florian Höllerer, i sin artikkel "A house of (literature) for the Continent" fra 2007. Höllerer er en av foredragsholderne denne onsdagen.
Foredragene holdes på engelsk.
Programme (10.00-13.00)
Houses of literature – a model’s potential
Florian Höllerer, born in Berlin in 1968, has been the Director of the Literaturhaus Stuttgart since 2000, and was on the board of directors of the literary network literaturhaus.net from 2008 to 2010. He studied German and Romance Studies in Berlin and Paris and taught for two years at Princeton University. He was awarded the prize of the Lyoner Académie des Sciences, Belles Lettres et Arts for his translation of the poems of René Leynaud. His doctoral thesis Les Poésies de Henri Heine. Heinrich Heine in der Lesart Gérard de Nervals was published by J.B.Metzler in 2004. Höllerer is involved in numerous literary juries and is co-editor of various essay anthologies. He has been teaching regularly at the University in Stuttgart since 2007.
You can’t create art through order, nor good leadership
In the book At lede kunstnere (”The art of Leading Artists”), Uwe Bødewadt, Museum- and Cultural Director of The Royal Library in Copenhagen, has interviewed twelve Scandinavian cultural leaders on their roles as leaders of larger artistic and cultural organizations. Bødewadt puts forward a row of questions such as: Is it at all possible to lead artists? What happens when different cultures meet intimately, argue and create conflicts? Is it achievable to find another bottom line than profit maximization? Are cultural leaders automatically interesting leaders because of the product they convey? How do you act as a leader within a room of political influence, constant media attention and a deceitful audience?
Translation as the Essence of Literature
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and three collections of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man; and Love and Obstacles. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a few months. But the siege of Sarajevo left him unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004.
In 2010 Hemon edited the anthology Best European Fiction 2010 containing 35 short stories from writers across Europe. “The stories you will find in this volume,” Hemon writes in his introduction, “inescapably question and probe and sabotage various national myths… unabashedly questioning the propriety of the old forms in the new set of historical and political circumstances.”
Aleksandar Hemon, som er norgesaktuell med romanen Lazarus-prosjektet (http://www.gyldendal.no/Skjoennlitteratur/Romaner-og-noveller/Lazarus-prosjektet), kan du også møte i forfattersamtale med Linn Ullmann onsdag 5. mai kl. 19.00 (/program/2010/05/enheltekstraordinaermann.html).
Nedjma Litteraturhuset International seminar