The Annual Symposium of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula

(May 18 - 20, 2007 - Sighisoara, Hotel "Sighisoara" - Romania)

Welcome to a symposium which will debate the thorny issue of the border between the supernatural and the historic Dracula, of artistic liberty, of Sense and Nonsense in documentaries, of cultural responsibility versus cultural clichés: “Dracula – Blurring the Boundaries between Truth and Fiction” (details in www.mysteriousjourneys.com)

Among the many Romanian and foreign scholars, writers debating the issue, playwright Paul Everac (Romania) offers a short play themed “Dracula” - to be acted in premiere (by the amateur actors of Sighisoara) during the symposium.

Here is a first list of Speakers at the TSD Symposium:

Canada:

Prof. ELIZABETH MILLER
“ Blurring the Boundaries: Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, and The Historian”

Prof. JOONNA S. TRAPP
“Challenging Stoker’s Presentation of Women: An Operatic Version in Progress”

Prof. JASON NOLAN
“ Fictions that Changed the World: Anne of Green Gables and Dracula”

Prof. CAROL SENF
Title-pending

U.S.A. :

Writer LESLIE S. KLINGER
"The Face and The Mask: Truth and Fiction in Bram Stoker's <Dracula>"

Italy:

Prof. Dr. MASSIMO INTROVIGNE
"Dracula in Trouble: The Campaign Against Vampire Comics, 1949-1964"

Germany:

Dr. MARK BENECKE
"Real life vampyre motifs: vampire exhumations, impaling, and subcultures"

CHRISTIANE-LUISE RÖDER
“Archaeological function of coins as a source and the messages a coin transports”

The United Kingdom:

MICHAEL-BAYLEY HUGHES
“The Marotinu versus the Hardman case”

Romania:

Acad. Prof. Dr. SABINA ISPAS
“Between Fantastic and Miraculous”

Acad. Prof. Dr. CONSTANTIN BALACEANU-STOLNICI
Title-pending

Acad. Prof. Dr. SORIN COMOROSAN

Acad. Prof. Dr. RAZVAN THEODORESCU
Title-pending

Play-Wright PAUL EVERAC

Literary critic MIHAI UNGHEANU
“Truthfulness and consumerism – as artistic options”

Drd. MARIUS CRISAN
“The Dual Image of Transylvania in its British Literary Reflections”

The April issue of this Letter will publish the full program – on days, speakers and events – of the symposium.
Participants are welcome to attend the debates, and/or to book the post-symposium tour (“Dracula, the Prince and the Vampire”, May 21 – 27).

Information and bookings with the logistics:

Company of Mysterious Journeys
www.mysteriousjourneys.com
company@mysteriousjourneys.com
cdt@rdsmail.ro
Tel/fax: +40/21.233.99.15

Tel: +40/31.405.73.85
+40/31.405.73.86
Cell phone: +40/723.584.430 (Daniela Diaconescu – TSD vice-president CMJ director)