With long traditions of printing and book culture, Vilnius was an important centre for book publishing and production in the Eastern part of the Central Europe for hundreds of years. Coexisting side by side, a wide range of book worlds evolved and developed in the city, each defined by the traditions of different religious and ethno-confessional communities, along with their information and communication needs. Due to changing political, economic and cultural conditions in different historical stages, the culture and publishing of the minority book developed new forms and expressions over the ages. The situation illustrated in Lithuania is representative of the typical traditions of publishing activity features of small countries and of minorities. These changes and differences are important for the harmonious development of societies in the global world.
The Book Science and Documentation Institute of the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University is kindly inviting you to take part in the International Book Science Conference “The minority book: historical experiences and modern expressions in the global world”, which is planned for 24–25 September 2015 at Vilnius University. This will be the 23rd Vilnius Book Science Conference and it will be organised together with the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) and The Nordic-Baltic-Russian Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading, (HIBOLIRE). SHARP unites scholars of different disciplines conducting book studies and is a global network for book historians working in a broad range of scholarly disciplines. Based in the Baltic and Nordic states, HIBOLIRE is also a multinational and multidisciplinary network of book scholars focussing on book history, reading history and library history.
The 2015 conference will deal with broad issues from within the minority book culture and publishing history, as well as the challenges of modern times. The organizers of the conference hope that it will be attended by researchers studying printed and digital media creation, publishing, production, distribution and reception, as well as their expression in small social groups and communities. Contributions to the conference in these fields could influence the emergence and development of the relevant research of the minority book and publishing in the Baltic region, as well as in other European states and other countries.
The organizers of the conference relate the concept of minorities with the ethnic, confessional, cultural, social, linguistic and other types of social groupings and communities. Their book and print cultures are understood as a phenomenon that existed in different historical contexts, but have acquired increasing significance in the global world of our times. Thus, research in this thematic area becomes especially relevant for the modernity.
The call for the papers on the minority book covers the following topics:
- Multilingual worlds of book in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania;
- The book of small European nations in the modern society of the 19th century;
- The renaissance of the regional (ethnic) community book in the 20th and 21st centuries;
- Book publishing and culture in ethno-confessional communities in Europe (for example, Jewish, Tatar, Karaim and Old Believers’ books in Lithuania);
- Alternative modes of publishing in different historical periods (collectable books, artists’ books, self-publishing, illegal publishing, publishing books in alternative formats, etc.);
- Publishing by emigrants’ communities in national and other languages;
- Small country publishing in the global world.
Conference languages
Preferred presentations language is English. Presentations in Lithuanian and Russian also can be considered (please contact organizers for simultaneous translation during the conference)