Tuesday, November 10, 4:00pm-8:30pm

Rm 402, Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania
(click here for map)

This event is sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and CEC ArtsLink

In 1990 Russian poet Alexei Parshchikov enrolled in graduate study at Stanford University. His presence in California for the ensuing several years was a high water mark in the interactions between Russian and American poets as the Cold War was coming to a close. "Contact" will be devoted to a discussion of this moment in US-Russian poetic history, and in particular to Alexei Parshchikov's American sojourn. Symposium participants include a number of Parshchikov's interlocutors during those years.

Program:

4:00 Welcome

4:15 Alexei Parshchikov: A Bilingual Poetry Reading

5:00: Round Table Discussion with Charles Bernstein, Dmitry Golynko, John High, Eugene Ostashevsky, Bob Perelman, Ron Silliman, and Andrew Wachtel. Kevin M. F. Platt will moderate.

6:45-8 Dinner Reception for audience and participants.

Participants:

Charles Bernstein
Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Penn. Parshchikov translated his "Artifice of Absorption" into Russian. He is the author of My Way: Speeches and Poems and Girly Man.

Dmitry Golynko
Poet and cultural critic from Saint Petersburg. Golynko is poet in residence at Penn during fall 2009. He is the author of three books of poetry in Russian. He has recently been published in English in As It Turned Out by Ugly Duckling Presse.

John High
J High's most recent book is here. a book of unknowing is forthcoming. Both books are by Talisman House. High was primary editor & translator for Crossing Centuries—The New Russian Poetry as well as co-translator of books by Ivan Zhdanov, Nina Iskrenko and Alexei Parshchikov's Blue Vitriol (along with Michael Molner and Michael Palmer.)

Eugene Ostashevsky
Russian-born American poet, author of The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza (Ugly Duckling Presse) and editor and main translator of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (Northwestern UP).

Bob Perelman
Poet and critic who teaches at U Penn. Books include Iflife (2006); Playing Bodies (with Francie Shaw, 2004); Ten to One (1999).

Kevin M. F. Platt
Teaches Russian and Comparative Literature at Penn. He is the author most recently of Terror and Greatness: Ivan IV and Peter I as Russian Myths (forthcoming from Cornell UP).

Ron Silliman
Author of over 30 volumes of poetry, criticism and memoirs, including The Alphabet (U. of Alabama, 2008). With Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian & Michael Davidson, Silliman is the co-author of Leningrad (Mercury House, 1991).

Andrew Wachtel
Dean of The Graduate School at Northwestern University. Wachtel has translated poetry and prose from Russian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Slovene and Bulgarian. His most recent book is Russian Literature co-written with Penn colleague Ilya Vinitsky.