Playing With Witches. Karen Blixen's Generous Tales. In Conversation with Ieva Steponavičiūtė-Aleksiejūnienė

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