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The Pain of Words: Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures
Publication Year
2008
Abstract
Recent studies of emotions have pointed to a particular role of pain in shaping identities and narratives. Regardless of their
disciplinary affiliations, scholars seem to agree that verbal
expressions of pain first of all draw attention to the suffering
individual instead of describing the actual experience of pain.
Narratives of suffering provide the individual with a powerful
symbolic presence. They create emotionally charged communities. Such narratives also lay the foundation for larger social, political or moral claims.
This link between pain, representation, and subjectivity is well
documented in Slavic cultures, where vivid depictions of suffering saturate popular and elite cultures alike. As the young Mayakovski put it, "I am with pain, everywhere." However, this conference wants to move beyond the documenting of omnipresence of pain in Slavic cultures. Instead, we want to explore how social, linguistic, aesthetic, moral, gender, etc. conventions determine specific contents of pain in different historical periods and different geographical locations. What are the symbolic contexts in which experiences of pain are recognized? To what extent do available cultural practices constrain or encourage certain narrative versions of pain? What gets lost in the process of translating traumatic experience into narratives of suffering? How is the phenomenon of pain used to galvanize individual and group identities, to justify social values, to motivate artistic projects or, in some cases, to undermine(or generate) political movements? In short, what are those discourses through which Slavic cultures acquire and express their concepts of pain?
disciplinary affiliations, scholars seem to agree that verbal
expressions of pain first of all draw attention to the suffering
individual instead of describing the actual experience of pain.
Narratives of suffering provide the individual with a powerful
symbolic presence. They create emotionally charged communities. Such narratives also lay the foundation for larger social, political or moral claims.
This link between pain, representation, and subjectivity is well
documented in Slavic cultures, where vivid depictions of suffering saturate popular and elite cultures alike. As the young Mayakovski put it, "I am with pain, everywhere." However, this conference wants to move beyond the documenting of omnipresence of pain in Slavic cultures. Instead, we want to explore how social, linguistic, aesthetic, moral, gender, etc. conventions determine specific contents of pain in different historical periods and different geographical locations. What are the symbolic contexts in which experiences of pain are recognized? To what extent do available cultural practices constrain or encourage certain narrative versions of pain? What gets lost in the process of translating traumatic experience into narratives of suffering? How is the phenomenon of pain used to galvanize individual and group identities, to justify social values, to motivate artistic projects or, in some cases, to undermine(or generate) political movements? In short, what are those discourses through which Slavic cultures acquire and express their concepts of pain?