World Poetry Today: Production, Translation, Reception (2025)

Poetry is inherently “worldly”, both polytemporal and polyspatial, as stated by Jahan Ramazani. While poems belong to their immediate historical moment and national culture, they are at the same time transnational as well as transhistorical through their forms, techniques, rhetorical strategies, and language. (J. Ramazani, Poetry in the Global Age, 2020) Using the term “world poetry”, we wish to invite papers which focus on the intercultural dissemination of poetry and explore how the worldwide production, translation, and reception of poetry are influenced by (and, in turn, influence) the digital environment, which has led to the emergence of new mediums/forms of poetry. Today, poetry is living and circulating as never before, both in book form and in the digital as well as the physical environment – its spread into the public space is already demanding attention in poetry studies (see C. Benthien, N. Gestring, Public Poetry, 2023). Defined by Tartu’s renowned literary scholar Juri Lotman as “complexly constructed meaning” (Analysis of the Poetic Text, 1976, p. 35), poetry continues to pose new challenges for writers and translators, critics and readers.

The keynote speakers are Claudia Benthien (Universität Hamburg), Francis R. Jones (Newcastle University), Jahan Ramazani (University of Virginia), A.E. Stallings (University of Oxford), as well as Peeter Torop (University of Tartu), Rein Raud (Tallinn University) and Mihhail Lotman (Tallinn University, University of Tartu). Read more >>>

The conference venue is Tartu, which is a UNESCO City of Literature and the 2024 European Capital of Culture and has a rich poetry scene. See more: https://tartu.kirjandus.ee/

The conference is the initiative of two research projects funded by the Estonian Research Council: The Factor of Lyrical Poetry in the Formation of Small Literatures (PRG1106, 2021-2025), led by Liina Lukas, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Tartu and Translation in History, Estonia 1850-2010: Texts, Agents, Institutions and Practices” (PRG1206, 2021−2025), led by Daniele Monticelli, Professor of Translation Studies and Semiotics at Tallinn University. It will bring together the results of both projects placing them in a wider international comparative context. The conference is also supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment and the Ministry of Culture’s research and development programme through the project “Voices of Youth in Digital Age Poetry: Poetics, Attitudes, and Identities” (KUM-TA75), led by Rebekka Lotman, Associate Professor of World Literature at the University of Tartu.

Organizers

E-mail address of the organizing committee is evka2025@lists.ut.ee.

Scientific Committee

Liina Lukas (University of Tartu)
Daniele Monticelli (Tallinn University)
Rebekka Lotman (University of Tartu)
Katre Talviste (University of Tartu)
Saara Lotta Linno (University of Tartu)
Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov (Tallinn University)
Maris Saagpakk (Tallinn University)
Jaanus Valk (University of Tartu)

Event Organizing Team

Rahel Ariel Kaur (University of Tartu)
Emilia Kõiv (University of Tartu)
Saara Lotta Linno (University of Tartu)
Nicolas Lotman (Leiden University)
Miriam Mcllfatrick-Ksenofontov (Tallinn University)
Johanna Roos (University of Tartu)
Marja Unt (Estonian Literary Society)
Jaanus Valk (University of Tartu
Tõnis Vilu (Poet, Tartu City Writer 2025)