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When the planning for the EUTERPE Project started in 2021, one of the first people we reached out to for support and participation was Susan Stanford Friedman (1943–2023). Known for her research in literary and gender studies, whose wide interests included women’s literature, modernity, migration/diaspora studies, global and transnational literatures, and postcolonial studies , Susan Friedman was an author whose work was seminal for the research done in EUTERPE. We were happy and honoured when she accepted our invitation, looking forward to four years of cooperation. However, unfortunately, soon after the start of the project she passed away. It was a hard blow for many of us gathered around EUTERPE, because for us Susan was much more than a highly respected and influential scholar. She was a special friend known for her warm personality and intellectual generosity. She selflessly shared her knowledge, supported the work of her colleagues and engaged in teaching and promoting young scholars.  This lecture series was created in her honour, to celebrate her legacy and to keep her presence alive. Thank you to Susan’s friends, colleagues, students, and admirers who hosted and delivered these memorial lectures. And thank you to Susan, a dedicated feminist who has touched our lives and who will continue to inspire us in the years to come.  Lecture Titles:  Reshuffling: Feminist Collaboration and Transnational Solidarity with Rebecca L. Walkowitz “Use the Words You Have to Get the Words You Need” with Kimberly Campanello Ruins, Fragments, and the Word: War, Memory, and Utopian Vision in H.D.’s Late Poetry with Raffaella Baccolini The three lectures were delivered at one of our biannual EUTERPE Doctoral Schools hosted by participating universities.  The lectures can be accessed on our website, youtube channel, and soundcloud: https://www.euterpeproject.eu/podcast-library https://youtube.com/@euterpepodcast?si=nZT7Q6iRLvWSigYN https://on.soundcloud.com/khGxy7GFM6JDJ2TeuF

In September, doctorate candidate María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto organized and delivered a workshop as part of her internship with ILFU. ILFU  is the International Literature Festival in Utrecht, who hosts and organizes the biggest literature festival in the Netherlands. This year’s festival lasted two weeks and presented over 200 authors from different countries to an audience of +20,000 who attended the different events offered. Aside from the festival, ILFU also organizes other public events and offer a range of writing and reading courses through their ILFU Academy platform. It was in this platform that our doctorate candidate hosted the ILFU Academy Workshop on Life Writing . The workshop was open to the public. Auxi Castillo Soto introduced varied concepts on transnational life writing and provided different prompts to practice free and speed writing on a topic of the participants’ preference. Participants shared their writing experience and their written texts with others. In subgroups, they listen to each other, provided feedback and generated discussions. Life writing serves as a healing process of expression, more so, if done in communal spaces. Auxi Castillo Soto make sure to provide participants with a safe space to experiment and practice with life writing as a tool to find their own voice and share their stories. Besides the participatory aspect of the workshop, participants discussed the topic of life writing with  Alejandra Ortiz  and  Chérissa Iradukunda,  two first-time authors who published their migratory journeys to the Netherlands. First, the authors read excerpts from their transnational life writing narratives, and later, participants asked them questions about their books, their stories, and their experiences as life writing authors. This Q&A session was recorded and it can be found as a podcast in EUTERPE’s Podcast Library . This was a great experience for Auxi Castillo Soto who learned about the Dutch working environment and acquired important soft skills to enhance her professional profile and CV. We want to thank for becoming a project’s partner and allowing the doctorate candidate the space to develop such an enriching workshop.

By Alice Flinta In June this year, EUTERPE doctoral candidate Alice Flinta participated in the seventeenth annual Black Europe Summer School – Interrogating Citizenship, Race and Ethnic Relations . The organisers, Prof. Kwame Nimako, Dr Camilla Hawthorne (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Prof. Stephen Small (University of California, Berkeley), brought us together – an enthusiastic cohort of around thirty-five students from various backgrounds – for two weeks, at IIRE, the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam. BESS is a hub for intellectual, political, and social interrogation over race relations in Europe. This year it opened with an introductory talk by Prof. Nimako delineating a concise history of the coming together of the European Union. The lecture focused on which social and political stakeholders have been involved in the process, and which ones haven’t. Such an approach underscored the analysis of the EU’s power structure, its economic interests and social priorities. It shed light on the emergence of racist, nativist views that are reflected in current systems of “racial citizenship” and are fundamental to the notion of Fortress Europe. [PB1]   The second day, we started by taking a tour of four European port cities and their relationships with Blackness, intellectually guided by Prof. Olivette Otele (SOAS), whose copies of African-Europeans: An Untold Story  (London: Hurst & Company, 2020) were resting on most desks that day. From day three, we started to zoom into the different national realities, and approached race and race relations on a country-by-country basis. We started with Dr Margaret Amaka Ohia-Nowak (Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin) guiding us though “Black Poland,” to then move onto “Black Germany” with Dr Madeline Bass (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen), “Black Britain” with Prof. Stephen Small, “Black Italia” with Dr Camilla Hawthorne, and “Black Portugal” with Dr Cristina Roldão (University Institute of Lisbon). In one of our last seminars, Dr Giovanni Picker (University of Glasgow) prompted us to move beyond the framework of the nation-state and adopt a transnational and transhistorical lens to assess the potentialities of juxtaposing Black European and Critical Romani Studies. [PB2]  Participants had the chance to present their research, projects and ideas at the day-long Inside Black Europe and African Diaspora Symposium  that took place on Friday, 27 June. The symposium was organised around four panels, the topics of which ranged from literature to sociological, ethnographic and methodological research, and a preview screening of a documentary on Afrori Books – Books by Black Authors  bookshop in Brighton (UK). Inspired by Dr Hawthorne’s “Black Italia”, I gave a presentation on how Afroitalian literature draws on the Mediterranean (as a relational space, but also as a philosophical framework) to disrupt and challenge racial affiliations in Europe. Fundamental to BESS is experiencing and engaging with legacies, memories and responses to Europe’s colonial past. For this purpose, the participation of the School’s cultural attaché, Jennifer Tosch, founder of Amsterdam’s Black Heritage Tours , was invaluable. From a boat tour of Amsterdam’s colonial past to a visit to Kehinde Wiley’s exhibition at the Van Loon Museum , from a guided excursion of the Royal Palace to a preview talk and walk on the site of the forthcoming National Slavery Museum , to the unforgettable Keti Koti Day on 1 st  July, Tosch brought to life many of the discussions that took place throughout the two weeks of workshops. Finally, the tour of the Wereldmuseum’s exhibition Our Colonial Inheritance  and the lecture by Wayne Modest were crucial to spark conversations on the management and remembrance of colonial legacies and their future. BESS is a fundamental experience not only for those who think, write and feel with and through questions of race and Blackness in Europe, but also for those who think, write and feel through Europe. As the many workshops, talks, lectures and presentations have made clear, Blackness has been, and regretfully remains, a marginal question within the European project – be it intellectual, social or political. Black Europe  is not just an educational programme, but also a social and political mission that leaves us, participants, with both an invaluable range of tools and frameworks to make our work more careful, caring and attuned to reality, and a renewed sense of engagement and purpose.

The aim of EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective is to offer an innovative approach to rethinking European cultural production in the light of complex social and political negotiations that are shaping European spaces and identities at present. Latest Publications Reading for Each Other Creative book reviews that facilitate an exchange of literature between doctoral candidates, allowing them to better understand each other's lives and work. Publications by Doctoral Candidates Publications by Doctoral Candidates A collection of writing – papers, articles, peer-reviewed publications, books and other media produced by the doctoral candidates. Project Updates The Susan Stanford Friedman Lecture Series Life Writing Workshop Renewed purpose and perspectives. Reflections on the Black Europe Summer School (Amsterdam, 22 June – 4 July 2025) Exploring Feminisms in a Transnational Perspective at Postgraduate Course in Dubrovnik A Collision with Truth – Palestinian British Voices Panel Use the words you have to get the words you need All news (8) 8 posts

Podcast Library Ruins, Fragments, and the Word: War, Memory, and Utopian Vision in H.D.’s Late Poetry with Raffaella Baccolini This episode features a lecture delivered by Raffaella Baccolini, a professor of Gender Studies and American and British Literature at the University of Bologna, Forlì Campus. Baccolini completed her PhD under the supervision of Susan Stanford Friedman, and has since published widely on women’s writing, H.D., modernism, dystopia and science fiction, trauma and memory, and Young Adult literature. The episode also includes a short introduction given by Jasmina Lukić, Professor with the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University in Vienna and the Principal Leader for the EUTERPE project. This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Susan Stanford Friedman. “Use the Words You Have to Get the Words You Need” with Kimberly Campanello This episode features a lecture given by Kimberly Campanello, which weaves together her recent published and unpublished writing and her reading in neuroscience and literary criticism, including Susan Stanford Friedman’s writing on H.D., who has significantly influenced Campanello's work. This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Susan Stanford Friedman. Reshuffling: Feminist Collaboration and Transnational Solidarity with Rebecca L. Walkowitz This episode features a lecture delivered by Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Claire Tow Professor of English and Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Barnard College. The episode also includes an introduction given by Jasmina Lukić, Professor with the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University in Vienna and the Principal Leader for the EUTERPE project. The lecture pays tribute to the legacy of Susan Stanford Friedman as a scholar and mentor by reflecting on the concept of “reshuffling,” which Friedman developed in her later work as a way of thinking about feminist collaboration across differences of generation, nationality, race, religion, and class. This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Susan Stanford Friedman. Stories of Survival: South Asian Voices in Vienna What does it mean to translate one’s story, language, and labor across borders? In this episode of the EUTERPE podcast series, host Samriddhi Pandey speaks with three South Asian scholars based in Vienna whose work deals with migration, identity, and artistic practice. Moiz Rehan reflects on queer asylum and bureaucratic violence, Rameeza Rizvi explores the “gray zones” of consent and the politics of intimacy in Lahore, and Fattima Naufil Naseer discusses the fading craft traditions of Lahore’s carpet weavers. The conversation moves through stories of navigating European academic spaces and finding ways to keep one’s voice alive inside these institutions. A Conversation with Eugenia Seleznova In this episode, doctoral candidates Tamara Cvetković and Samriddhi Pandey interview Eugenia Seleznova, an author, researcher, and cultural manager from Ukraine. Currently, Eugenia is a PhD Candidate at Central European University, where she conducts a research on queer Ukrainian relationalities during the war. In conversation with Tamara and Samriddhi, Eugenia shares how the contexts of the post-Soviet, then revolutionary, and then, finally, wartime Ukraine have shaped her experience as an author, and directed her own shifts and transitions: between identities, regionalities, languages, genres, occupations — and ways to love and write. The conversation also touches on transnational and translingual experiences of writing through displacement, and on finding one's way as a "peripheral researcher" amidst the Western academia. "I am not a sedentary person; I am peacefully restless": A Conversation with Elvira Dones How does an artist listen to the pain of others? How can writing represent and respect their voices? In this episode, Albanian Italian author, and English PEN Award winner, Elvira Dones talks to Alice Flinta about her process of writing, and how her life experiences inform the creative process. From life in Albania and her escape in 1988, to the asylum experience in Switzerland, to the documentary work across borders (Albania, Italy, Kosovo and the U.S.) that informs her literary endeavours, Dones offers intimate and thought-provoking insights into being transnational and living transnationally. A Conversation with Author Chérissa Iradukunda In this podcast, doctoral candidates Evangeline Scarpulla and Maria Auxiliadora Castillo Soto, converse with transnational author Chérissa Iradukunda, a first time published author who recounts her migratory experience from Burundi to the Netherlands in her book titled Broken Object. Her book was published in 2023 by Austin Macauley Publishers, and it presents readers with the difficulties experienced by a teenage girl while adapting to her new home and Dutch culture. Throughout their conversation, Iradukunda talks about what being a transnational author means to her. She also discusses the process of publishing her book, and her motivation for choosing English as the language of publication. Lastly, they discuss specific themes related to the plot and characters of her creative novel. Georgia, Caucasus and Beyond: A Conversation with Author Nana Abuladze When Nana Abuladze – Georgian author of novels such as "Akumi" and "The New Perception", who has received many prestigious awards for their work exploring the themes of gender, sexuality, identity and spirituality – visited the United States, Ninutsa Nadirashvili (EUTERPE doctoral candidate) was privileged enough to record a conversation with the writer about all things Georgia, Caucasus and beyond. In this podcast, they talk about isolation, Georgia’s history and how it’s been shaped by imperialism as well as internal strife. Additionally, they discuss transnational experiences and the merging of global and local life. We hope this podcast will encourage you to learn more about Nana’s work and Georgian literature. Postcolonial Europe and Its Intellectuals: Feminist and Transnational Perspectives with Sandra Ponzanesi This episode features a lecture by Sandra Ponzanesi. Sandra is a member of the EUTERPE consortium and the Principal Investigator for Utrecht University. She is Chair and full Professor of Media, Gender and Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she is also the Founding Director of the Postcolonial Studies Initiative (PCI). In this lecture, Sandra Ponzanesi discusses how Europe is not just a continent, a mere geographical space that continually redefines its boundaries and peripheries, but an ideal. It is the cradle of Enlightenment and scientific revolutions, and therefore of Western modernity and democracy. Decolonisation and Caste: Untold Hierarchies In this episode of the EUTERPE Podcast, doctoral candidate Uthara Geetha (University of Oviedo) speaks with Dr. Malavika Binny (Kannur University) and Dr. Tintu Joseph (Mahatma Gandhi University) about the long history of caste as a system of hierarchy and exclusion. Beginning with B.R. Ambedkar’s seminal insights, the conversation traces caste from its Vedic origins and the Aryan migrations to its intersections with patriarchy, slavery, colonialism, and Christianity in Kerala. The episode examines how caste was reinforced under British rule, compares it with racial apartheid and white supremacy, and shows how it continues to structure oppression today. Listeners are invited to rethink caste as central to both colonial histories and decolonial futures. Minal Sukumar on Performance Poetry In this podcast, doctoral candidate Evangeline Scarpulla speaks with performance poet and PhD researcher Minal Sukumar. Minal’s humorous and engaging poetry explores themes of identity, selfhood, and coming of age. In this episode, she gives a reading of some of her poems including #OOTD, If History Catches Up and The Women I House. These readings are followed by a conversation about the origins and inspiration for her work, the meaning of transnationalism in her life and writing, and some of the specific imagery and themes found in her poetry. Interdisciplinarity and Interpretation: Concepts, Boundaries, and Contradiction with Ato Quayson This episode of the EUTERPE podcast features a lecture by Ato Quayson, the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies, Professor of English, and Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. The lecture was delivered at the third biannual EUTERPE Doctoral School, held at Central European University in Vienna, Austria. A Conversation with Author Alejandra Ortiz In this podcast episode, doctoral candidate Maria Auxiliadora Castillo Soto and transnational author Alejandra Ortiz took a walking tour around different places in Amsterdam that are important to the author. Ortiz is the author of the book De Waarheid zal me Bevrijden , published in 2022 by Lebowski Publishers. In her book, Ortiz recounts her migratory experience from Mexico to the United States and Netherlands and her varied experiences in these countries as a trans migrant woman. Multi-layered Approaches: A Conversation with Filmmaker Zuza Banasińska This podcast is a conversation between EUTERPE doctoral candidates Ninutsa Nadirashvili and Olga Fenoll Martínez and the transnational filmmaker Zuza Banasińska. Interested in the reproduction of images, systems, subjects and bodies, Zuza looks for ways to embody and queer existing archives. In this interview, they discussed their essay films, installations, multi-layered approaches that incorporate found and recorded footage, intricate ecosystems, and how they strive to interrogate and de-stabilise entrenched notions of identity, gender, and representation. Kimberly Campanello: "I don't want to be the poet who never thought about the meanwhile" On overlapping chronologies, intersecting geographies, translation and how writing can bring this all together. Kimberly Campanello - poet, performer, writer and professor at the University of Leeds - converses with Alice Flinta about her transnational belongings between the US, the UK and the south of Italy, and how this all comes together in her most recent project, a rewriting of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

Publications by Doctoral Candidates Estranged From Himself? A Manuscript-Based Analysis of Meursault in L’Étranger This article delves into the manuscript of Albert Camus' L’Étranger to explore the creation and evolution of its enigmatic protagonist, Meursault. Drawing on archival research conducted at the Fonds Albert Camus in Aix-en-Provence, Alice Flinta examines Camus' linguistic and syntactic choices, revealing how Meursault's character organically emerged through the writing process. by Alice Flinta Rethinking Knowledge, Unthinking the Brahminical: Dalit Feminism and Gender-Caste This article introduces a Dalit decolonial feminist standpoint as an epistemic and political framework that redefines feminist thought through four interrelated pillars. It argues that decolonial and postcolonial frameworks remain constrained by their inability to recognise caste as the meta-structure that organises social relations, epistemic hierarchies, and modernity itself. by Uthara Geetha Amsterdam through a (Trans)national Gaze: A Conversation with Life Writing Author Alejandra Ortiz Alejandra Ortiz, author of De waarheid zal me bevrijden, offers readers an opportunity to see Amsterdam from her (trans)national gaze. Through this piece, she shares how Amsterdam has influenced her identity as a woman, writer and activist, and her feelings of (non)belonging. by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature : French Writers, White Writing by Étienne Achille and Oana Panaïté (review) Solidly rooted in postcolonial theory and practice, Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature shines a spotlight on the great ghost of contemporary conversations on race: the ‘unnamed, unmarked, and thus structurally invisible’ Hexagonal, liberal, White writer (p. 7). by Alice Flinta Reimagining the Past and Rethinking the Other:The Significance of Creative Historical Revision in Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe (2001) and Blonde Roots (2008) This article examines how contemporary transnational feminist author Bernardine Evaristo uses historical revision and counter-discursive narrative techniques in The Emperor's Babe (2001) and Blonde Roots (2008) to rethink the paradigms of Self and Other. by Evangeline Scarpulla An Act of Life: Georgian Women’s Film and Being Human in Relation These are lessons learned from watching Georgian films directed by women. Lessons about agency, perspective, background noise that shapes our lives, how being human is done in relation, and the possibility of turning toward each other so that we may overturn the doom. by Ninutsa Nadirashvili Making Waves... of Words We agreed that we wanted to see what we make of words – and what words make of us. Weaving together two of the many concerns that the EUTERPE Project grapples with, feminism and migration, we came up with the idea of facilitating an interactive game of scrabble played on a world map: a wor(l)d map. by Evangeline Scarpulla and Alice Flinta Our Time in Utrecht: Transnational reflections What you see here is a collaborative collage and a co-written creative reflection made with love by the seven of us – transnational students who found each other during a fall semester at Utrecht University. by Ninutsa Nadirashvili Conveying Migrant Experiences through Literature This opinion piece argues that autobiographical writing can be a powerful tool, especially for people with a migrant background, to diversify the stories in our collective consciousness—and to reclaim ownership of your life story on a personal level. by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto Maps and Fabulations: On Transnationalism, Transformative Pedagogies, and Knowledge Production in Higher Education Using a creative critical account of feminist ethnography conducted at a Western European university, the paper presents and discusses two illustrative vignettes about cultural mapping and critical fabulation, considering how dissonant voices have challenged Western concepts, exemplifying transformative pedagogy working in tandem with transnational thought. by Ninutsa Nadirashvili and Katherine Wimpenny Interpreting “Translanguages” in Transnational Women’s Literature: Socially Situated Perspectives and Feminist Close-Readings This article employs a series of feminist close-readings to explore the use of "translanguages" in the work of the Algerian novelist and film-maker, Assia Djebar, and the Dutch-Uruguayan poet, Maxime Garcia Diaz, and demonstrates how their literature subverts patriarchal and monolingual hegemony to promote transnational feminist solidarity. by Adelina Sánchez-Espinosa and Séamus O’Kane Contested Communities: Small, Minority and Minor Literatures in Europe ed. by Kate Averis, Margaret Littler and Godela Weiss-Sussex (review) Contested Communities is an ambitious study that uncovers a complex net of relationalities, within Europe and beyond, starting from the language question within the literary domain. by Alice Flinta Postcolonial Intellectuals: Exploring Belonging Across Borders in Igiaba Scego’s La mia casa è dove sono (My Home Is Where I Am) This article focuses on the life writing narratives of diasporic writers in Europe, such as the Italian writer of Somali descent Igiaba Scego, who manages to create powerful interventions on issues of belonging, diversity, and creativity. by Sandra Ponzanesi and María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto Writing (a) Home in Times of Crisis: A Review of Scattered All Over the Earth (2018) by Yoko Tawada This review explores contemporary Japanese-German author Yoko Tawada's engagement with the concepts of migration, home, and belonging in her 2018 dystopian cli-fi novel Scattered All Over the Earth. by Evangeline Scarpulla Challenging the Idea of Europe: Representations of Female Transnational Experiences in Chérissa Iradukunda's Broken Object This analysis considers Chérissa Iradukunda's Broken Object as an alternative discourse to the traditional idea of Europe as superior and universal. by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto Challenging European Identity: Representations of Female Transnational Experiences in Marrón by Rocío Quillahuaman This paper examines how the representations of female experiences in Marrón, a transnational Life Writing text written by Rocío Quillahuaman, challenge a hegemonic European identity. by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto