Rethinking Epiphany – Perspectives from the Fringes
Tampere University, 13 September 2024
Location: auditorium VIRTA 109, Åkerlundinkatu 5, Tampere
In literature, epiphany is considered as the moment of revelation, illumination, or enlightenment of a fictional character. Epiphany has been associated particularly with modernist literature, and with the foregrounding of powerful moments of heightened significance in the works of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and their contemporaries. This symposium considers the legacy of such “moments of being” (Woolf 1939) and proposes new perspectives to challenge or enrich our understanding of modernist forms of epiphany. It is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of epiphanies, as well as in how perspectives from the fringes add to our understanding of epiphany.
Keynote speakers:
Nigel Fabb, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Päivi Mehtonen, docent, independent scholar, Finland
PROGRAM
| 09.00-09.30 | registration, coffee |
| 09.30-10.30 | Symposium opening words
Keynote Sustained Epiphanies: Medieval mysticism in recent experimental prose Päivi Mehtonen (independent scholar) |
| 10.30-12.00 | Session 1. (Chair: Riikka Pirinen) Chain epiphanies: Making sense of modes of production and distribution Lieven Ameel (Tampere University) Heterotopic moments of being in the short stories of Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector and Jhumpa Lahiri Tetyana Kasima (University of Tartu) Exemplum as epiphany – epiphany as exemplum Maria Mäkelä (Tampere University) |
| 12.00-13.00 | Lunch break
(self-pay) Restaurant Myllärit, Åkerlundinkatu 4, 33100 Tampere |
| 13.00-14.30 | Session 2 (Chair: Lieven Ameel) But What Happened Then? Fictionality and Failing Epiphanies in Kierkegaard Ville Hämäläinen (Tampere University) Epiphany and fictional speech: tracing the tellability in dialogue narration Anna Kuutsa (Tampere University) Reaching Ipseity Through Narrative Epiphany in Damso’s Ipséité Olivier Salès (Florida International University) |
| 14.30-16.00 | Session 3 (Chair: Laura Oulanne) Modernist and ecstatic epiphanies in the short stories of Eeva-Liisa Manner Tiia Kähärä (University of Helsinki) Suburbia and the twilight of tomorrow – reading J. G. Ballard’s Vermillion Sands Chan Du (University College London) Epiphanies of Plot and Mind: Narrative Theoretical Interventions in Short Story Form Riikka Pirinen (Tampere University) |
| 16.00-16.30 | Coffee & refreshments |
| 16.30-17.30 | Keynote
Epiphany and surprise at the lack of variation Nigel Fabb (University of Strathclyde) Symposium closing words |
| 19.00 | Dinner
(self-pay) Restaurant Piemonte, Suvantokatu 9, 33100 Tampere |
Organizing committee:
Lieven Ameel (Tampere University), Patricia Garcia (University of Alcalá), Laura Oulanne (University of Helsinki), Riikka Pirinen (Tampere University),
For more information contact: riikka.pirinen@tuni.fi
Symposium in collaboration with Fringe Network, University of Alcalá, Narrare research center
