The Uneversity of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Contemporary Literary Studies
Special Lecture

LIBERATURA: a New Literary Genre

Katarzyna Bazarnik (Jagiellonian University) + Zenon Fajfer (Poet, Critic)

Moderator: Ariko Kato (University of Tokyo, Contemporary Literary Studies)


Liberatura is a new literary genre which integrates text and the material form of the book (Lat. ‘liber’) into a meaningful whole. Its major representatives, Katarzyna Bazarnik and Zenon Fajfer, are Polish writers and theoreticians whose activities initiated a whole literary movement. They will present their ideas about this kind of writing and show most exciting liberature books, which often trespass literary and editorial conventions. After the lecture they will read from Zenon’s latest bilingual poetic volume ten letters/dwadziescia jeden liter.



カタジーナとゼノン

Katarzyna Bazarnik: liberature theoretician, translator, Joyce scholar, teaches English literature at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She edited several volumes of essays, including James Joyce and After. Writer and Time (2010), and wrote Joyce and Liberature (2011). She runs, with Zenon Fajfer, Liberatura imprint of Ha!art Publishers, and Liberature Reading Room in Krakow. Together they published a triple codex Oka-leczenie (2000), the first book described as liberature, and (O)patrzenie (2003). Their most recent work is Liberty Poem, a poetic action carried out on Wall Street in New york (25.09.2011) and in Chicago (3.10.2011).

Zenon Fajfer: Polish poet, creator and theoretician of liberature, a new literary genre integrating text and the material shape of a book into a meaningful whole. He published Oka-leczenie (2000) and (O)patrzenie (2003), written with Katarzyna Bazarnik, and individual works: the bottle-book Spoglądając przez ozonową dziurę (2004), a bilingual poetry volume ten letters (2010) and Liberature or Total Literature. Collected Essays 1999-2009 (2010). Fajfer invented a poetic form called the ‘emanational poem.’






date: Friday, 2 December 2011
time: 15:00-17:00
place:The University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters(Hongo Campus) Faculty of Law & Letters Bldg.1, room112

access: From Hongō-Sanchōme Station(Tokyo Metro Marunouchi & Toei Ōedo Line),Tōdaimae Station(Tokyo Metro Namboku Line), Nezu Station(Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line) : An approximately ten-minute walk.


Program
15:00-16:10 Special Lecture
Katarzyna Bazarnik + Zenon Fajfer
“LIBERATURA: A New Literary Genre”
Presentation of the Liberary Series
16:10-16:40 Poetry Reading (in Polish, English and Japanese)
From Zenon Fajfer, ten letters (2010)
16:40-17:00 Discussion
Moderator: Ariko Kato

* This lecture is supported by JSPS KAKENHI(Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research(B)20320052).

The University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Department of Contemporary Literary Studies
TEL: 03-5841-7955, e-mail: genbun×l.u-tokyo.ac.jp(×→@