Literature

"Litreaktor" Seminar-Workshop. Ukraine in search of archetypes
 

Author and project founder - writer Lyubko Deresh.

"Litreaktor" - like the nuclear reactor - is an environment where  particles of a whole interact in open conflict, releasing huge amounts of energy. Litreaktor's purpose is to bring about that release of energy from its participants and to use it constructively.

The 1st Literary Seminar-Workshop "Litreaktor 1.0" is an innovative event in the cultural life of Ukraine, which aims to re-imagine modern Ukrainian reality in a mythological and symbolic manner.

The seminar should provide a powerful stimulus to the development of Ukrainian literature and culture, both domestically and abroad.


Objectives:

• Creating a "reactor" environment, to establish new intellectual leaders in literature.
• Sounding the voice of a new generation - the so-called "2010-ers", to see the social picture of the people who will create the image of Ukraine over the next twenty years.
• Publication of a collective text-book of new images (pictures), scripts, and archetypes of Ukraine, for the open use of its developments to everyone.

Litreaktor 2010 Subject: "Ukraine in search of archetypes"

In philosophy, thought images are seen as a basic unit of a given culture. For example, the "Superman" and "The Matrix" are both thought images of the American culture. Japan has its "kamikaze", "hari-kiri", and "the way of the Samurai", while the Russian thought image is the matryoshka, or nesting doll.. Dostoevsky's phrase - "Beauty will save the world" - is also a thought image. Not every image created by the culture (Gogol's "Taras Bulba" or "The Overcoat", for example) is a thought image; only those that are recognized by other cultures and seen by them as engaging and useful.

Ukraine has not created any thought images in demand in the worldwide cultural process. This makes Ukraine a cultural outsider as a country.

An understanding of the logic of building archetypes is an important tool in the hands of the writer. An understanding of the juxtaposition of cultures as competing thought images allows the writer to create literature of not only sub-cultural or local significance, but literature which will play a role in the common process of civilization. The methodology of creating thought images in literature is a key theme of the festival.

Programme:

Morning lectures on subjects (30 hours):

• Text and Authenticity (I. A. Kozlovsky)
• Methodology and design of thought images (S. Datsyuk)
• The soul and consciousness of a performance (V. Sementsov)
• Cultural criticism in the 21st century (K. Doroshenko)

Evening "Fight Club" - an intellectual debating club with open conflict - integration of the material mastered (15 hours).

The concluding game, "Archetypal Ukraine", will put the material mastered into practice (3:00). Hosts - Sergey Datsyuk and Uta Kilter.

Essay-writing and homework.

Speakers:

• Serhiy Datsyuk - specialist in methodology, philosopher, expert consultant, analyst. General Director of the "Gardarika" strategic consulting corporation. Author of  courses on "Writing" and "Human Technology" at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Intellectual and provocateur.
• Konstyantyn Doroshenko - art critic, curator, art-manager, co-founder of the "Doroshenko-Grishchenko Clinic".
• Uta Kilter - art critic, the only certified dance performer in Ukraine. Renowned abroad, where she studied and worked, and where she is often invited to give master classes. Uta is one of Kira Muratova's favorite Ukrainian actresses, with Muratova once referring to her as Odessa's Greta Garbo.
• Ihor Kozlovsky - Associate Professor at Donetsk State University, head of the Center for Religious Studies and International Spiritual Relations; teaches "Theory and Practice of Religious Mysticism", "The Philosophy of Religion", "Psychology of Religion", and "Phenomenology of Religion".

Participants:

Young Ukrainian writers, aged 18-28, with one work under their belts, or authors of two or three novels.  15-17 participants overall.