The publishing house Buybook will for the ninth International Literature Festival BOOKSTAN. NO EAST. NO WEST. , which this year takes place from July 3 to 6, will award 20 scholarships for participation in the literary criticism workshop. The theme of this year's workshop is Constructions of Hope and Hopelessness in Literary Criticism , and it will be held from June 30 to July 6, 2024 .
In these frightening, hopeless times, awareness of the transience of past hopelessness and of the ways in which people still managed to survive and find sources of hope is perhaps best built by carefully listening to the voices of earlier generations (…). By writing about them, as well as about the writers of their own generation, from the perspective of their own time and its hopelessness and reasons for hope, young critics establish one of the communication channels across the generation gap, teaching us to hear in literary texts what the noise and fury of history would like us to ignore and forget.
– Andrea Lešić, leader of Bookstan's 9th literary criticism workshop
Applications are due by May 26 must be sent to the e-mail address radionica@buybook.ba and must contain an application form , a biography and two author's works in the field of literary criticism, essay writing, scientific journalism, and professional and scientific works, and literary and/or journalistic columns are also considered. After the applications have been reviewed, shortly after the last application deadline, the selected candidates will eventually be invited to an online interview with the workshop coordinators, after which the final selection will be made. The scholarship is intended for students and literary and artistic critics who actively speak English, write in Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian or Serbian, and are between 21 and 30 years old. Participants who participated in previous workshops have the right to re-apply.
The tasks for candidates who pass the selection will be divided into three segments:
- The first phase is writing the text, which must be submitted by June 17th , and the task will be specified in the invitation letter.
- The second phase will include tasks related to monitoring festival events; the aforementioned texts will be published on social networks and the websites of Buybook and Bookstan, and selected on the websites of media partners.
- The third phase is attending lectures and workshops with distinguished lecturers during the duration of the program.
The leader of this year's workshop is Prof. Dr. Andrea Lešić , a professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Information Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, where she teaches mainly literary theory courses in all three cycles of studies. She has written about comparative literature (French, Russian and Southeastern European literatures) and literary theory (especially structuralism, narratology, and Bakhtin, as well as the problem of memory). Through her scientific research work, she deals with the problem of cultural memory, cognitive poetics, love stories and vampires.
In addition to the workshop leader, selected participants will have the opportunity to listen to other lecturers and guests of the festival.
The scholarship covers the costs of the workshop, accommodation in a hostel, food in agreed restaurants, and travel expenses. We ask all those interested to read the rules of participation found in the document with the application form.
The expert jury will select 20 participants of the program, who will be awarded prizes after completing the task, and the best ones will be awarded.
Incomplete applications will not be considered. Official confirmations of participation will be sent to selected candidates no later than June 1 , 2024 , along with a more detailed work program and necessary logistical information.
Good luck everyone!