How do we project and conceive the future? Futurity is not only about rational, more-of-the-same extrapolation. The existing crisis may potentially lead to a catastrophe, but humanity’s rational capacity means it can mitigate the crisis and must elaborate imaginative alternatives. The Institute for Global Reconstitution sets itself both tasks: warning and transformation. The future, however, is not only an object of rational projects but also of imaginative reconstructions and dreams. Extrapolation routinely confronts disbelief and denial and so deserves exploration in its own right. However, seeking an imaginary reconstitution is the noblest of tasks, and any success in this venture requires careful attention. Imaginative constructions and surreal dreams compete against rational extrapolatory techniques, and open their own windows into a better future.

In the Modes of Futurity conference, co-organized by Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Institute for Global Reconstitution, we are interested in the unbounded social imagination that comes from all genres of arts and sciences, including reaching out beyond academia for creative plotlines designed by writers, with a specific focus on contemporary Russian literature and arts.

The recent turns of history have been unexpected for many. Contemporary Russia’s gradual transformation from a liberal democratic regime into a conservative tyranny was not inevitable and was not evident in the making. It is therefore striking that in the 2000s and 2010s, some Russian writers accurately anticipated the present turn to war and despotic rule. Novels by Viktor Pelevin, Vladimir Sorokin, and Dmitry Bykov described the future metaphorically but more precisely than “scientific” predictions did. A similar competition between different genres of political forecast also occurred in other cultures: think of the Hollywood portrayal of terrorist acts prior to September 11th (Independence Day) or of pandemics (The Contagion). If these genres have proved their credibility by predicting the present, their models for the nearest future could be even more valuable.

Modes of Futurity will discuss the many theoretical and empirical questions arising from this experience:

•What is the mechanism of literary prophecy? How do we the readers set apart predictions that are most likely to be accurate from the many failed ones?

•Can there be an element of self-fulfilling prophecy, not necessarily in the anti-utopian novels as such, but in the collective imaginary they rely on?

•How does the literary imagination relate to the scholarly projects and scenarios produced in the last decades? Can there be an alliance between intellectual projects and fictional writing?

•Is there a way to use these visions to avert the worst of these unexpected historical turns?

•Is there currently a space for utopian rather than anti-utopian fiction?

‍Program

9:30 - 09:45 Opening

09:45 -10:00 Introduction speech Ilya Kalinin and Alexander Etkind

10:00 Ilya Kalinin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Institute for Global Reconstitution

Very Old Songs about the Most Important: Deconstruction → Nostalgia → Affirmation

10:45 Anastassia de La Fortelle, University of Lausanne

"The Fall of Constantinople is a Personal Misfortune that Happened to us Last Week": The Dystopian Otherness

Moderator: Alexander Etkind, Central European University

11:30 Coffee Break

11:45 Dmitry Simanovsky, Editor-in-Chief for Überbau

Bridging Utopia and Dystopia: Aldous Huxley as an Architect of the Future and the Place He Allocated to Russia

12:30 Larissa Muravieva, Smolny Beyond Borders

Autofiction without a Future vs. The Future of Autofiction

Moderator: Dmitry Lebedev, Institute for Global Reconstitution

13:15 Lunch

14:15 Michael Marder, The University of the Basque Country / Institute for Global Reconstitution

Prophecy and/against Populism in the Hebrew Bible (online)

15:00 Dmitry Bykov, University of Rochester

12 Points to Keep in Mind Giving Absolutely Exact Predictions (online)

15:45 Alexander Etkind, Central European University

How Authors Predict, and how Readers Judge: The Details of War and Peace in Dmitry Bykov’s "ZhD" and other Post-Soviet Texts

Moderator: Susanne Frank, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

16:30 Coffee Break

16:45 Natalia Grinina, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Forms of Communality in a Dissolving State: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “From Under the Rubble” through the Prism of Ordinary Language Philosophy

17:30 Artemy Magun, Institute for Global Reconstitution

From a Critique of Fantasy toward a Philosophical Theory of Destiny

18:15 Mark Lipovetsky, Columbia University

Pelevin’s Futurity: What’s Wrong with the Transhumanism Inc. Universe?

Moderator: Ilya Kalinin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Institute for Global Reconstitution

19:00 - 19:20  Closing remarks

‍

‍

Practical information

Date: March 15th, 09:30

Venue: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 

Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum 

Grimm Centrum Auditorium 

Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin

‍

‍