480065 KO Colloquium on Regional and Cultural Studies (2021W)

In certain respects, the literary journal can be regarded as the representative genre of the Yugoslav interwar avant-garde. On the one hand, it is, quite traditionally, a privileged space for aesthetic and cultural debates; on the other hand, it allows for a move away from the book (the completed, closed work) as main literary genre and thus stands in proximity to avant-garde claims on the necessity of abandoning traditional artistic communication. Consequently, some of the major figures and movements of the Yugoslav avant-garde have chosen the literary journal as their main means of expression: Ulderiko Donadini through editing Kokot, Rade Drainac through Hipnos, Antun Branko Šimić through Vijavica, Ljubomir Micić through Zenit, the Belgrade Surrealist circle through Nemoguće – L’impossible, Dragan Aleksić through Dada-Jazz and Dada-Tank, etc. In the course, an analysis of representative issues of these journals will be attempted with a three-fold analytic objective: a) to demonstrate how changes in the literary paradigm are articulated through journals (the literary manifesto almost without exception making part of the journal’s discourse), b) to show how the journals contribute to or mirror the wider context of a theory of the avant-garde and c) to demonstrate how through journals the avant-garde communicates with other cultural forms (film, new media, technology, new means of communication, but also debates on the politics of aesthetics). Through the literary journal, a panorama of Yugoslav avant-garde literature unfolds itself, with its cultural and historic context being highly present on the journals’ margins. Having the literary journal as its issue point, the course would therefore offer insights into specific developments in South Slavic literature, into general concepts of avant-garde art theory and into wider changes in the cultural context within which these journals appear.

The course will be held in BKS.