MEETINGS and TOPICS

PIRAN 

1^st        9-12May 1968
The unifying value of antagonisms

2^nd       10-12 May 1969        
Art – a beginning or the end?

3^rd        9-11 May 1970          
Deus in machina – Deus ex machina

4^th        7-12 May 1971          
Why do we write? (International PEN Conference)
a)     Creative writing as subjective expression or as ameans of
       moral and social action 
b)     Writing as negation of death and oblivion      
       Permanence as a criterion of evaluation
c)     Literature as a substitute for religion or a system of morals
d)     Creative writing as a means of achieving human contact across time
       and space

5^th       12-15 May 1972        
Literature as information                                                          
a)     Literature from the trivial to the hermetic
b)     Literature from national to international

6^th       15-19May 1973         
What do we want?
a)     The writer and his readers
b)     Writing techniques
c)     The writer's means of expression: Mother tongue or several languages

7^th        1-5 October 1974      
The writer caught in the contradictions of modern civilisation
a)     The therory of humanism and the use of terrorism in the contemporary world
b)     The young generations between apathy and revolt

8^th       7-11 May 1975          
Contemporary prose
a)     The novel
b)     The short-story
c)     The essay

9^th        26-30 May 1976        
Perception and creation in literature
a)     Hermetic literature
b)     The writer advancing an ideology or merely recording events


BLED

10^th      11-15May 1977         
New alternatives
a)     The writer in a declining world
b)     The writer in a rising world
c)     The writer as a bridge between two worlds

11^th     16-20 May 1978        
Anguish of the contemporary world and literature
a)     Freedom, order, anarchy, violence
b)     Love, erotism, sex, pornography
c)     Formal perfection, challenge, nothing

12^th     8-13 May 1979          
a)     Literature as an instrument of new universalism
b)     Literature as a bridge between peoples

13^th     6-11 May 1980          
The author between critique and the public (International PEN conference)
a)     The critic and the best-seller
b)     Critique as creation
c)     The critic and cultural politics

14^th      13-17 May 1981        
Hindrances affecting a writer's work
a)     External hindrances
b)     Self-censorship
c)     Writer's block

15^th     12-16 May 1982        
Literature –idea - ideology
a)     Literature as a struggle
b)     Literature as a game
c)     Literature as an adventure

16^th      16-20 May 1983        
The reality of the world and artistic truth
a)     The manipulation of reality and art
b)     The construction of reality in art
c)     The public as a function of artistic truth?

17^th     4-8 May 1984            
The year of Orwell – 1984
a)     Historical memory
       »Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.
       In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by
       documentary evidence to have been correct...«
a)     Social structure
       »In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of
       poverty and ignorance.«
b)     Man's intimate world
       »I have not betrayed Julia,« he said. O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully.
       »No«, he said,« no, that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.«

18^th      8-12 May 1985          
The hereditary enemy
a)     National, ethnic and racial hatred
b)     Social, class and ideological hatred
c)     Hatred of the foreign, of the different and of the marginal

19^th     7-11 May 1986          
The cultural identity of small nations...
a)     under contemporary pressure of ideologies and great numbers
b)     in the grip of systems and means of communication
c)     in the space of Central Europe

20^th      6-10 May 1987          
The truth of literature and the truth of history
a)     Literature and truth
b)     History as a lie of the ruling power and
       literature as a substitute for historiography
c)     Literature as a shaper of historical consciousness

21^st     11-15 May 1988        
To belong to a minority – to belong to the majority
a)     A minority: advantages and disadvantages
b)     Whence the hatred of the majority for minorities
c)     Writers: a spiritual minority?

22^nd    16-20 May 1989        
Overcoming the deficits of the past between East and West
a)     The native country and the exile
b)     Literature in exile
c)     Politics and literature in the East and in the West

23^rd     15-19 May 1990        
Fear to-day

24^th     14-18 May 1991        
Nations- nationalisms – writers

25^th      26-30 May 1992        
Pen and sword

26^th      25-29 May 1993        
Am I my brother's keeper?

27^th     24-28 May 1994        
Hate speech and the language of tolerance

28^th     30May-3June 1995    
a)     Fascism past and present
b)     The role of writers and literature to-day

29^th      21-25 May 1996        
a)     Antigona to-day
b)     Si vis pacem...

30^th     21-25 May 1997        
a)     »Esprits maudits«
b)     Pen at a crossroads: after the cold war do we face a confrontation of
       civilisations, religions, cultures...
c)     War as a video game

31^st      20-24 May 1998        
a)     Laugh at the end of the second millennium
b)     Cassandra to-day

32^nd     19-23 May 1999        
a)     National literatures and the process of globalisation
b)     The Balkans: the role of writers for the promotion of
       the culture of peace

33^rd     3-7 May 2000            
a)     The language of literature fom the earth to new horizons
b)     Universal human rights under pressure of new world divisions

34^th      23-27 May 2001        
a)     Literature as the Eros of the New Era
b)     Human rights and the Writer's Mission

35^th      15-19 May 2002        
a)     What is left to us of the 20th century?
b)     The writer's responsibility

36^th      21-26 May 2003        
a)     Oh, The Brave New World (after Huxley)
c)     An Eye for an Eye and the Entire World will be Blind

37^th     26-30 May 2004
a)     European culture or European cultures?
b)     Peace: a lucky or an unlucky compromise?

71^st World Congress of International PEN
14^th - 21st June 2005
a)     The tower of Babel - a blessing or a curse
b)     Literature as a safeguard of the cultural landscape
b)     The language of peace - literature as lingua franca

38^th  29 March – 2 April 2006
a) Globalisation of the world – Marginalisation of literature
b) The Role of PEN in the contemporary world
c) Freedom of expression as a means against terrorism
 
39^th  28 March – 1 April 2007
a) Languages under threat – Dying cultures
b) Reading as a social event
c) Post-totalitarian resistance

40^th 26 – 30 March 2008
a) What is the European consciousness?
1) Philosophical and sociological aspects
2) Literary, cultural and civilisational aspects
b) An ethical attitude to history as a source of peace

41^st 25 – 29 March 2009
a) The Age of liberation
b) The Role of culture and public media in the processes of liberation
c) Images of womanhood in literature as a path of peace

42^nd 24^th – 28^th March 2010
a) Globalisation: an opportunity for all or a new colonisation for many
b) Literature and Globalisation
c) Peace between diurnal and nocturnal dreams