Relational Forms X

1925, 2025: Which Twenties?

Empathy and Estrangement Across Time in Literature and the Arts

 

an international conference hosted by the

University of Porto, Portugal

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‘We’re in 1925’; ‘it’s the 1930s again’: statements of this kind may sometimes be a trope of lazy journalism, and yet they carry a particular persuasiveness as regards our rapport with certain moments in history – irrespective of whether they obtain from us a sense of empathy or a contrarian response.

 

This conference probes the applicability of that trope to our perceptions of the literatures and arts of a century ago: when we approach them from our early 21st-century circumstance, do we get a sense of congeniality – of replicated patterns? Or rather of incommensurability, of history never repeating itself (or otherwise of doing so ‘with a [huge] difference’)? And how does this tension between emulation and dissent apply to our view of the relations between literature and the other arts – then and now?

 

Honouring the Relational Forms tradition of embedding particular commemorative designs in its annual conferences, the reflective exercise described above will this year encompass the centennials of two momentous publications – Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As always, these will not be the object of the conference, but rather two specific footholds in literary memory that may inspire discussions of other objects from a very broad literary and artistic landscape.

 

As indicated by the number in its title, this is the tenth regular event to reflect the concerns of the eponymous research group (Relational Forms), based at CETAPS (the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies). The group’s rationale and remit entail that we centrally address the cultures of the Anglophone world, with a particular focus on Ireland and Britain – but we accept contributions bearing on other literary and artistic cultures.

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Relational Forms X. 1925, 2025: Which Twenties? Empathy and Estrangement Across Time in Literature and the Arts is hosted by the Department of Anglo-American Studies (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto) and CETAPS – Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies.

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Financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project UID/4097/2025 CETAPS

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