ROUND TABLE 100 years since the publication of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain

Tuesday, July 16
Kotor Creative Hub, 9:30 p.m.
ROUND TABLE
100 years since the publication of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain

Participants:
Nataša Anđelković, research assistant, Institute of Literature i Art, Belgrade
Jelena Knežević, assistant professor in the field of German literature, University of Montenegro
Jasmina Bajo, moderator, philologist

The Magic Mountain is one of the greatest novels of German and world literature. The author not only depicts the specific spirit of the time, the decadence of the European bourgeois class in the first decades of the 20th century, but also makes a modernist effort to expose an entire tradition, both literary and cultural, through the very patterns that underpin it. The novel captures the spirit of pre-war Europe and the maladies of the modern world, which are more than relevant today: isolation, mass epidemics, the troubles of progress, and industrial alienation.
We will discuss why dialogical confrontation with others and ourselves is more necessary today than ever before and why the carnivalesque overturning and subversion of the established order is essential for awakening and learning the truth, following the carnivalistic sense of the world in The Magic Mountain.
Mann raises questions about love, loss, time, what it means to be a fulfilled person in the world, and what it means to face death. Precisely this concept of illness and death as a necessary path to knowledge, health, and life makes The Magic Mountain a universal novel. The universality of this novel is also exemplified in the relevant comparison of the atmosphere in Europe before the Great War and today, as well as in the comparison of the then elite with the world’s current elite, where the privileged in both times meet precisely in Davos.

Maja Mrđenović

Nataša Anđelković graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, specializing in Serbian Literature and Language with General Literature. She pursued postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, focusing on Literary Studies, and defended her master's thesis in 2006 on the topic Traditional and New in Dubrovnik Pastorals of the Late Renaissance. In 2010, as a DAAD scholarship holder, Nataša Anđelković conducted doctoral research for three months at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. She defended her doctoral dissertation titled The Relationship between Carnivalization and Identity Formation in 'Druga knjiga Seoba' and 'Dnevnik Čarnojevića' by Miloš Crnjanski and the European Context in 2016 at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. She has published scholarly articles in journals such as Contributions to Literature, Language, History, and Folklore, Literary History, Philological Studies, Teatron, Lipar, Bratstvo, Savremenik, and Literary Magazine, as well as in the collection Aspects of Time in Literature by the Institute for Literature and Art. In 2017, Nataša Anđelković published the monograph titled Carnival of Identity. She has served as an Editor at Plato Publishing House. Since 2018, she has been employed at the Institute for the Advancement of Education and Upbringing as an Advisor-coordinator for the subject of Serbian Language and Literature. She also writes literary criticism.

Jelena Knežević, a literary theorist and Associate Professor specializing in German literature at the University of Montenegro, earned her doctoral degree from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, where she also completed her undergraduate studies in General Literature and Literary Theory. Since October 2018, Jelena Knežević has been engaged as a Visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, in the Department of German Studies. She has also taught World Literature at the Faculty of Montenegrin Language and Literature in Cetinje, as well as in the study program for Montenegrin Language and South Slavic Literature in Nikšić. She conducts research and publishes in the field of comparative literature, focusing on topics from German and world literature. Additionally, Jelena Knežević is involved in literary translation.

Jasmina Bajo completed gymnasium studies in Kotor before graduating from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, specializing in Serbian Literature and South Slavic Literatures, with a particular focus on Serbian Literature and Language with General Literature. Her graduating thesis was Kotor and the People of Kotor in Paskvalić's Poetry. She completed her master's studies at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade with a thesis on Shakespeare and Laza Kostić – Character Traits and Dramatic Techniques, earning the academic title of Master of Philology in Serbian Language and Literature. Since 2004, Jasmina Bajo has worked as a librarian at the City Library and Reading Room in Kotor. In 2018, she obtained the professional title of Library Advisor. Jasmina Bajo has participated in numerous domestic, regional, and international professional conferences. Her works have been published in conference proceedings as well as in other professional publications and journals. In 2019, Jasmina Bajo was elected President of the Montenegrin Librarians Association.