Ieva Steponavičiūtė-Aleksiejūnienė, Vilnius University, invites nordlitt to workshop around the concept of play in two stories by Danish author Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen. Ieva muses with Blixen on why art cannot make us happy, and we uncover creative connections between artistic processes, superficiality, and cannibalism. Blixen also guides us toward a new, gender-crossing take on theories of creative misreading. Moreover, we encounter a family history entangled with the history of Scandinavian Studies in the Soviet Union and Lithuania, and we learn about the significance of Denmark for post-communist Lithuanian scholars. Finally, Ieva encourages us to listen to the text and emphasizes the importance of intellectual exchange beyond national and political borders. 

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Introducing Ieva Steponavičiūtė Aleksiejūnienė

(00:01:56) Life Patterns and Scandinavian Studies in Lithuania  

(00:13:40) Georg Brandes Skolen

(00:20:52) Introducing Karen Blixen

(00:31:38) Looking at Blixen through Play

(00:41:43) Workshop: Recurring Images and Characters in “Echoes”

(00:48:06) Metafiction, Art and Life

(00:51:34) Resurrection and Cannibalism 

(00:58:54) Is Blixen difficult?

(01:03:48) The Playful Vampire-Artist

(01:11:29) Theories of Influence

(01:16:08) Navigating through “Tempests”

(01:23:27) Art Cannot Make People Happy

(01:34:23) The Tension between Symbol and Allegory

(01:39:54) Art and Transcendence

(01:42:57) The Shipwreck Versus the Floating Ship

(01:46:00) Other Research Interests: Scandinavia, Lithuania and Beyond

(01:54:00) Advice to Student-Self

Bibliography, further information, and comments are available on Experiment Geisteswissenschaften.

https://exgeist.hypotheses.org/category/nordlitt

Ideas and conception: Stefanie von Schnurbein

Cut: Cecilia Falkman