Conference "Literature and the Problem of Arts Integration"

XIV All-Russian Youth Research and Practice Conference "Literature and the Problem of Arts Integration" was held at Lobachevsky University on March 24-25. The event was organised by the Department of Foreign Literature at the UNN Institute of Philology and Journalism. Taking part were representatives of Lobachevsky University, as well as universities in Samara, Voronezh and Kazan.

The conference was launched at the UNN Science Park with two open lectures. The first one was delivered by Maximilian Neapolitansky from St. Petersburg. The topic of his lecture was "Geophilosophy and Literature: Land, Text, Landscape". Maximilian Neapolitansky is a researcher of contemporary philosophy, a literary observer, and curator of the Free Writing Laboratory in New Holland.

The lecture  "Memes as a Cultural and Linguistic Phenomenon" was presented by Valentina Kulikova, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Fundamental and Applied Linguistics at the Higher School of Economics and a graduate of the UNN Institute of Philology and Journalism. She gave many vivid examples to prove how and why memes have become a full-fledged object of study in the humanities and why memes are not just funny pictures, but a cultural and social phenomenon.

On the second day, the conference was hosted by the UNN Institute of Philology and Journalism. Professor Tatiana Sharypina, Head of the Department of Foreign Literature at the Institute of Philology and Journalism, addressed the participants with a welcoming speech.

"Since 2009, we have traditionally opened our conference with master classes by leading researchers, both from UNN and Russia's top universities. This year, in the context of the strategic project "Creative Personality", which is in line with the goals and objectives of the "Priority 2030" programme aimed at creating opportunities for self-fulfillment and talent development in a digital society, we gave the floor to young researchers. Such youth forums contribute to the retention of young talented researchers and teachers in the field of science and education," said Tatiana Sharypina.

The second day of the conference was organised in four panels:

• Text/audio: audiality and performativity in literature and art;
• Text and image: the problem of visuality and intermedial correlation;
• Text in film space: problems of transmediality;
• Textual spaces/the space of the text.