Reading Matevosyan
The Institute of Contemporary Art is organizing a course titled "Reading Matevosyan." Over ten sessions (5 lectures, each followed by a seminar-practical session), various aspects of Hrant Matevosyan's literature will be explored, some of which typically lie beyond the purview of traditional literary studies.The course will encompass lectures and seminars. Students will be required to (re)read assigned texts (excerpts from Matevosyan's literary works, essays, interviews), engage in discussions, and write short essays.The course was prepared and will be conducted by cultural critic Hrach Bayadyan. It draws upon his research inspired by approaches and theories such as resistance literature, postcolonial studies, and colonial discourse analysis. The main lecture and seminar topics are as follows:
Topic 1: Introduction. Reading Theories.
A brief overview (Marxist tradition of "symptomatic reading," "hermeneutics of doubt" - P. Ricoeur, "against interpretation" - S. Sontag, "surface reading" - S. Marcus and S. Best, audience studies). Symptomatic reading according to F. Jameson.
Historical context: 1960-70s. From The Khrushchev Thaw to the Era of Stagnation. Socialist realism and censorship. Stages of Matevosyan's literary activity. The new wave of industrialization and urbanization in Soviet Armenia. "National Awakening." Formation of Soviet-Armenian national ideology in literature (and literary studies). Main currents of Soviet literature, the question of "villageography." The role of the writer and literature according to Matevosyan. Self-definitions, retrospective assessments.
Reading - essays and interviews (list to be specified later).
Topic 2: Industrialization and Technologicalization in Matevosyan's Literature.
Modern Technology/The Ontological Dimension of Nature in "The Buffalo." Is "The Buffalo" a national allegory? The destruction of the traditional world. From the ideology of preservation ("the creation of the image of the homeland," the "Noah's complex") to the chronicle of destruction ("The Lord," "Tashkent"). The end of modern eastern armenian literature, re-examination of enlightenment ideas. Concepts: "indigenous," "pure," "foreign," "non-native," "mixed," "suitable."
Reading - "The Buffalo," "The Lord," essays and interviews (list to be specified later).
Topic 3: Image and Writing, the Question of Cinema.
The visual in writing - the spatial form of writing. Perspective: possessive (from above) and resistant. Ideology in cinema and the ideology of cinema. Antonioni's " The Night" in "Khumhar." Why retell the movie "We are our mountains"? Cinema and nation.
Reading - "Khumhar," plus Jamieson's "The Transformation of the Image," essays and interviews (list to be specified later).
Topic 4: Literary Resistance. The issue of genre and narrative.
The Theme of literary resistance in postcolonial theory. The ideological complicity of the novel genre in post-Stalin Soviet literature, Soviet Armenian "national" literature of the 1960s-1970s. History and cultural dominance. "Ironic distance from empire" (Edward Said), words from the margin - whose words is the writer speaking?
Reading - "From the beginning it was...", A. Marchenko's interview with Matevosyan, other essays and interviews (list to be specified later).
Topic 5: "National allegory" (F. Jameson).
Continuation of the theme of literary resistance. National allegory as a means of interpreting Third World literature. The national allegory in "Khumhar." "Lessons of Armenia" (Andrei Bitov). Transformations of Russian-Soviet literary orientalism. Parallel reading of "Lessons of Armenia" and "Khumhar."
Reading - "Khumhar," "Lessons of Armenia."
The full course fee is AMD 20,000, covering 5 lectures. The cost of one separate lecture is 6,000 AMD. Participation in the seminars is free for those registered for the full course.
The registration deadline is April 10th. The course will commence on April 14, 2023.