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The international interdisciplinary conference Im Grenzland. Der Böhmerwald als Grenzregion – systematische Lektüren (In the Borderland. The Šumava as a Border Region – Systematic Readings) will explore the Šumava as a historical, cultural, and literary space where different languages, identities, experiences, and ideas about borders have long intersected. Beginning Thursday, September 10, the three-day event will bring together experts from various European countries and academic disciplines at the UWB Faculty of Arts building at 15 Sedláčkova Street in Pilsen.

The conference program will open with a lecture by Manfred Weinberg, an expert in German literature from Charles University in Prague, focusing on interculturality and the region. The following thematic sessions will address theories and realities of borders; literary representations of the Šumava borderlands; actors and communities shaping life in border regions; methods for analyzing space and borders; and intermedial perspectives.

Participants will discuss, among other topics, changing perceptions of the other and the foreign, literary representations of borders, the memory of border regions, and the Šumava as a space of cultural and geographical imagination. The individual sessions will feature contributions from researchers from Pilsen, Prague, Augsburg, Olomouc, Munich, Basel, Toulouse, Vienna, and other European cities. The first day of the conference will also include a reading by German writer Peter Becher, who will present his work on September 10 at 8 p.m. in the shared space of the German and Austrian Libraries at the European House in Pilsen.

According to the organizers, the conference offers an opportunity to view the Šumava not only as a natural landscape on the border of Bohemia, Bavaria, and Austria, but above all as a multilayered space whose meaning continues to evolve through literature, culture, and collective memory. The diversity of perspectives and interdisciplinary dialogue are among the key principles of the event.