The 2008 IASS conference in Gdansk, Poland ”Nordic Drama – Renewal and Transgression” will be the first conference for almost 30 years where the participants will deal with Scandinavian drama. The last conference dealing with drama was held in Helsinki (XII conference 20th Century Drama in Scandinavia or, as Leif Longum formulated it, Scandinavian Drama after Ibsen and Strindberg.) At the meeting in Helsinki it was stressed that drama used to play a rather modest qualitative and quantitative role in the national literatures in the first 70 years of the 20th century. But it was intersting to ask and try to answer some questions which could show the role of modern drama in Scandinavian culture. Among the questions were the following How did fast social development influence the theatre in Scandinavia? In which way did international trends influence drama in the Nordic countries? What impact did radio and TV have on modern theatre in Scandinavia? What role did modern Scandinavian drama play in international theatre? And last but not the least: how was the development within the art of drama in those countries which did not have such ’father-figures’ as Ibsen and Strindberg to relate to?

By continuing the debate on the genre of drama after almost 30 years we wish to renew the essence of the concept nordic drama and demonstrate the dynamics of the concept. Moreover, we wish to make the map of the intersection between nordic drama and world drama more detailed. A revised interpretation may be applied to both contemporary as well as historical horizons. Since most participants in the conference coming from non-Scandinavian countries make translations of Scandinavian literature into their mother toungues, we would also like to open a discussion around the topic of translating drama.

We wish to structure the conference around the following topics:

The classical and the new
* An innovative look at the Nordic dramatic canon
* Modern Nordic drama


The inter-aesthetic and the boundary-breaking
* The dramatic dimension in prose and poetry
* Lyric and story telling dimensions in the art of drama
* Dramatization of prose
* The interaction between drama and the media, e.g.:
- from drama texts to film making, theatre performance or radio theatre
- the dramaturgy of radio and TV theatre


The intercultural dimension: influence and reception
* Nordic drama in the world
* The intersection between world drama and Nordic drama


The expansion of the concept ”Nordic drama”
* Arctic theatre & drama
* The ”unknown” drama (reassessment of the ”forgotten” authors)


To translate drama