An international conference on the subject of women's literary works and their cultural impact entitled What is Knjiženstvo? was held at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade on October 16 and 17, 2015.
Forty two experts from universities and institutes from Serbia and a total of 16 foreign colleagues – from Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland – took part in the conference.
Professor Aleksandra Vraneš, PhD, the dean of the Faculty of Philology and professor Biljana Dojčinović, PhD, the head of the project of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development entitled Knjiženstvo – theory and history of women’s writing in Serbian until 1915, opened the conference.
At the plenary session which launched the conference, Professor Vraneš presented her paper on digital humanities and cyber feminism. Digital humanities, the female experience and the feminist view on literature and history are the basic coordinates of this conference. The topics ranged from women in public discourse, women’s literature, women’s periodicals, women in wartime, to the use of digital humanities in research and the preservation of research results. All sessions were extremely well attended, there were quite a few lively discussions, and the reactions of participants and guests were quite positive. The question asked most frequently at the end of the conference was – when will such a conference be held again?
The conference also enabled various connections to be established and plans for new forms of cooperation to be made, such as the initiation of building a database of women’s magazines from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century in Southeast and Central Europe, the project of the virtual museum of Julka Chlapec Đorđević and the strengthening of regional and international networking within the idea of knjiženstvo.
The conference also had a number of accompanying events. On Thursday, October 15, from 10 am to 6 pm, a workshop about women’s periodicals and databases was held with researchers from the University of Crete at the conference room of the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. The workshop included such topics as the manner of work, research methods, digitization and the compatibility of the Knjiženstvo database and the database on women’s periodicals in Greek communities within the Ottoman Empire, as well as the forming of a joint database of women’s periodicals in Southeast and Central Europe.
Book-launch of the collection of essays Women, drama, performance (ed. by Lada Čale Feldman) was held at Kolarac University on Thursday evening.
An exhibition What is Knjiženstvo?, was opened at the same time as the conference itself, and it consisted of press clippings, media clippings, excerpts from papers written about this project, as well as of the books, doctoral dissertations, articles in magazines and collections of papers written and published within the project. The novels and books of poetry written by the members of the project Knjiženstvo were exhibited as well.
Simultaneously with the conference, the collection of papers entitled Knjiženstvo – theory and history of women’s writing in Serbian until 1915 came out of press.
The book of abstracts and programs of the workshop, the conference and its accompanying exhibition are archived at the link: http://www.knjizenstvo.rs/en/news/2015/09/international-conference-what-is-knjizenstvo.

Zaharije Radivojević (Electrotechnical Faculty BU), Katerina Dalakoura (University of Crete) and Biljana Dojčinović (Faculty of Philology BU) during the workshop on digital data bases for women's periodicals.

Ana Kolarić (Faculty of Philology BU), Natka Badurina (University of Udine), Yipakoi Papadoupulu and Marija Paitaki (University of Crete) during the workshop on digital data bases for women's periodicals.

Dubravka Đurić, Vukoman Stranjančević and Bojana Savović presenting the essay collection Žene, drama, izvedba (Women, drama, performance) at Kolarac University.

Part of the exhibition What is Knjiženstvo?

Before the Conference openning

Aleksandra Vraneš, dean of the Faculty of Philology, opens the conference What is Knjiženstvo?