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University of Granada Adelina Sánchez Espinosa Principal Investigator Angela Harris Sánchez Researcher Beatriz Revelles-Benavente Researcher

Doctoral Candidates Samriddhi Pandey Central European University Tamara Cvetković Central European University Marina Casado Guerrero Central European University Evangeline Petra Scarpulla University of Bologna Ninutsa Nadirashvili Coventry University Séamus O'Kane University of Granada Olga Fenoll Martínez University of Lodz María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto Utrecht University Laura Bak Cely University of Oviedo Alice Flinta University of York Uthara Geetha University of Oviedo

University of Oviedo Isabel Carrera Suárez Principal Investigator Emilia M. Durán-Almarza Researcher Carla Rodríguez González Researcher

EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective Coordinator: CEU PU Vienna, Austria Principal Investigator: Jasmina Lukic Funding: Marie Skłodowska–Curie Actions – Doctoral Network (MSCA DN) Duration: 1 October, 2022 - 31 September, 2026 Grant Ref: EP/X02556X/1. 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. EUTERPE intends to do that by bringing together gender and transnational perspectives within an interdisciplinary approach to literary and cultural studies. The research is organized into 8 work packages within four main areas: Transnational women’s literature and its travels: points of entry and pathways (WP 1, WP2); Translational genres: crossing borders in gender, form, space, and identity (WP 3, WP4); Transnational women intellectuals, multilingualism and decolonising European pedagogies (WP 5, WP6); Transnational literature and cultural production: intermediality as a form of translation (WP7, WP8). The Doctoral Candidates’ academic training will include two supervisors from cooperating universities, a compulsory secondment period, and an industrial internship with an Associated Partner organization to support bespoke employability enhancement. The major impact outputs of the project: 11 PhD theses; a co-produced open-source Dictionary of Transnational Women’s Literature in Europe with key concepts and bio-bibliographic entries on leading representatives of the field; and a Digital Catalogue and Podcast Library , which will make accessible all relevant material collected during the creation of the Dictionary. As a complex, interdisciplinary project, EUTERPE brings together literary and gender studies, as well as transnational studies, translation studies, migration studies and European studies. Objectives EUTERPE is envisaged as a complex, multilayered project, which has several long-term objectives, connected with very concrete tasks in the intersecting fields of gender studies, literary studies, translation studies and European studies. The objectives of the project are the following: To map the field of transnational literary studies in Europe as an interdisciplinary field, which brings together a range of interconnected disciplines and approaches, with gender perspective as the main integrative component and gender as a key analytical concept. To propose an interdisciplinary and intersectional framework for a theory of transnational literature. To contribute to the furthering of the discussion of European identity in academia and beyond by focusing on questions of non-national identity in contemporary European literary and cultural production. To set the frame for a history of transitional women’s literature in Europe by focusing on women-identified authors in the research of Doctoral Candidates (DCs), in the Dictionary of Transnational Women’s Literature in Europe, and in the Digital Catalogue and Podcast Library, the major results of the project. To produce the open access Dictionary of Transnational Women’s Literature in Europe as a major contribution to several intersecting disciplines: transnational studies, literary studies, gender studies, European studies, translation studies and migration studies. The Dictionary will consist of two parts: the first will be dedicated to theoretical and conceptual issues, and the second will bring together original bio-bibliographical articles dedicated to major women-identified authors in Europe today. To create the Digital Catalogue and Podcast Library to enhance the cross-border circulation of European cultural wealth by establishing and running an inclusive and flexibly available platform about European transnational literary output. Through the Catalogue all bio-bibliographic entries of the second part of the Dictionary will be online accessible and searchable together with extra links and contents, such as the author interviews of the Podcast Library. To offer comprehensive training in interdisciplinary thinking and intersectional, gender conscious research practices to the employed DCs. To train DCs in socially responsible, open science practices. To provide custom-made employability skills training for all DCs through ‘industrial’ internships within cogent but diverse organizations through associate partnerships across European contexts with libraries, publishing houses, museums, art networks. The Associate Partners offer important skills training in the fields of academic publishing, lexicographic writing, podcast recording, archival and curatorial work in order to open career choices for the DCs beyond academia. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement nr. 101073012. This project has received funding from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research Grant, Grant Ref: EP/X02556X/1.

Evangeline Petra Scarpulla Interested in speculative and imaginative genre criticism, contemporary feminist literary theory, and decolonizing the canon, Evangeline Scarpulla holds a BA in Comparative Literature with Honours from King’s College London and an MSc in Comparative Literature from the University of Edinburgh. During her MSc she explored how contemporary fantasy writers are reimagining the conventions of the genre through her dissertation entitled ‘Folklore in Fantasy: Challenging the Western Conventions of the Genre through a Critical Comparison of Marlon James’s Black Leopard Red Wol f and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings .’ Research topic Building off her previous explorations into broadening representation in imaginative genres and global literature, Evangeline’s PhD thesis will discuss how transnational feminist authors in Europe communicate narratives of resistance through ‘minor’ literary genres, including fantastic and speculative fiction, magical realism, and graphic novels. Investigating the close relationship between form and content, the thesis will discuss how many migrant female authors reach to border-defying and experimentative genres because their characteristics mirror their own liminal social positioning and hybrid identities. By challenging prevailing notions of fixed genres and truth vs. fantasy, these narratives overturn traditional binaries and ideas of nationalism, creating a unique transnational community of writers, readers, and thinkers. The research will be conducted in conversation with postcolonial and contemporary genre critics such as Homi K. Bhaba, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Nnedi Okorafor and Helen Young, contributing to efforts to expand the subjectivities represented in our ‘collective imagination.’ (Thomas, 2019). Previous Next

Noemi Anna Kovacs Central European University European Cooperation Officer Noemi joined Central European University in 2009. Her professional career started when she graduated from Pázmány Péter Catholic University and completed her MA degree in Humanities and Liberal Arts with two specialisations, one in Romanic Studies/Italian Language, History and Literature and another in English and American Studies/English Language, History and Literature. During university, she worked as a language teacher and freelance translator. Later on, as a fresh graduate, a book publishing house hired her as the in-house editor. Before joining CEU, Noemi had been working on large EU- and state-funded research projects for an independent, interdisciplinary research institute, Collegium Budapest – Institute for Advanced Studies. At CEU, Noemi’s portfolio ranges from individual postdoctoral fellowships to large multi-beneficiary EU-funded research and educational projects. Her responsibilities include pre- and post-award management of such grants and projects, be it legal or financial matters or the development of dissemination, communication, and cooperation strategies.

Evangeline Petra Scarpulla University of Bologna Doctoral Candidate Interested in speculative and imaginative genre criticism, contemporary feminist literary theory, and decolonizing the canon, Evangeline Scarpulla holds a BA in Comparative Literature with Honours from King’s College London and an MSc in Comparative Literature from the University of Edinburgh. During her MSc she explored how contemporary fantasy writers are reimagining the conventions of the genre through her dissertation entitled ‘Folklore in Fantasy: Challenging the Western Conventions of the Genre through a Critical Comparison of Marlon James’s Black Leopard Red Wolf and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.’ Building off her previous explorations into broadening representation in imaginative genres and global literature, Evangeline’s PhD thesis will discuss how transnational feminist authors in Europe communicate narratives of resistance through ‘minor’ literary genres, including fantastic and speculative fiction, magical realism, and graphic novels. Investigating the close relationship between form and content, the thesis will discuss how many migrant female authors reach to border-defying and experimentative genres because their characteristics mirror their own liminal social positioning and hybrid identities. By challenging prevailing notions of fixed genres and truth vs. fantasy, these narratives overturn traditional binaries and ideas of nationalism, creating a unique transnational community of writers, readers, and thinkers. The research will be conducted in conversation with postcolonial and contemporary genre critics such as Homi K. Bhaba, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Nnedi Okorafor and Helen Young, contributing to efforts to expand the subjectivities represented in our ‘collective imagination.’ (Thomas, 2019). Contributions: Scarpulla, Evangeline. 2024. “Writing (a) Home in Times of Crisis: A Review of Scattered All Over the Earth (2018) by Yoko Tawada”. Satura 6 (December). Review: Haratischvili, Nino. The Eighth Life: (for Brilka). Translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin. (London: Scribe Publications, 2019). Making Waves... of Words.

Review of 'White is for Witching' by Helen Oyeyemi Helen Oyeyemi’s 'White is for Witching' combines elements of the gothic tradition, vampire stories and haunted house stories to craft a narrative which probes issues of xenophobia and racism in contemporary British society. The novel follows Miranda, a young woman with vampiric qualities, as a sentient house intervenes in her life to protect, control and possess her. by Séamus O’Kane 23 April 2025 Review: Oyeyemi, Helen. White is for Witching. Helen Oyeyemi found literary success early. She wrote her prodigious debut, The Icarus Girl (2005), and secured a publisher while she was still in secondary school. The years since then have seen her produce a tremendous output: seven more novels, two plays and one short story collection. Born in Nigeria and raised in London, Oyeyemi’s nomadic trajectory has taken her to Paris, Berlin, New York, and, finally, Prague, where she now resides. White is for Witching (2009) is Oyeyemi’s third novel and garnered her the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award in 2010, placing her in the company of such luminaries as Doris Lessing, Angela Carter and Zadie Smith. White is for Witching opens with a cryptic and disorienting prelude as its protagonist, Miranda, lies already dead, with competing accounts of how this occurred. These segments set the stage for the narrative perspectives that make up the novel: Miranda herself, Eliot (her twin), Ore (her friend and partner), and the house itself, 29 Barton Road. The house is in Dover, a coastal town in England which serves as a major port to Calais, and therefore acts as a main entry point into England for many migrants and refugees. This setting allows Oyeyemi to examine contemporary issues of racism and xenophobia in her setting of England in the year 2000. Much like the welcoming façade of the house, the locals of Dover are superficially friendly but harbour a deep-seated racism. Refugees from Kosovo are stabbed, with Miranda’s twin, Eliot, blaming other refugees for the crime. Chinese migrants die in a truck trying to cross the border. There are protests outside the immigrant detention centre after a man commits suicide. When Miranda and Eliot’s mother, Lily, inherited the house, their father, Luc, persuaded his wife to turn the seven-bedroom Devon home into a B&B. Upon moving into the house, Miranda develops the same eating disorder which afflicted her great-grandmother. This disorder, pica, causes her to constantly chew on chalk and plastic, spurning regular food unless she makes a sustained effort to eat, usually to please her parents. When Miranda and Eliot’s mother dies, shot dead at a polling station in Haiti, Miranda finds herself in a psychiatric clinic for six months. Her memory of the events is already untrustworthy as she cannot recall how she got there. Consequently, an ambiguity persists when events are recounted from Miranda’s perspective. Physically weak from her eating disorder, her perception of reality is also unreliable, meaning that it is difficult to separate the supernatural events of the novel from Miranda’s own hallucinations. The house itself often casts aspersions on the reliability of Miranda and Eliot’s stories, whilst slyly suggesting multiple possibilities of its own. When recalling the fate of one of Miranda’s predecessors, the house presents two competing stories: she could have been strangled to death or allowed to reside within the house’s walls until she reached middle age. As the novel progresses, we learn more about the house, including the origins of its sentience, beginning at the time of Miranda’s great-grandmother. Thereafter, the house’s desire to “protect” the female members of the family becomes a corrupted, unwanted inheritance, as its desire manifests as possession and control, seeking to deny them any agency or autonomy. Miranda’s eating disorder is implied to be part of this supernatural inheritance as it afflicts subsequent generations who are connected to the house. As part of this disorder, she symbolically internalises chalk, connecting to the novel’s larger themes of racialisation and whiteness. This repeated act not only allows the house to symbolically extend its xenophobia beyond its physical boundaries, but it also weakens Miranda, causing her to become reliant on the house, and foreshadows the novel’s ending where the ultimate aims of the house’s idea of protection becomes clear. One of the novel’s focalisers is Ore, a woman with a Nigerian mother and white adoptive parents, who strikes up a friendship and romance with Miranda in Cambridge in some of the novel’s most touching scenes. Her perspective gives an insight into the discomfort and impostor syndrome of an elite academic environment. Furthermore, we see how Ore is subjected to the casual, mocking racism of her white cousins, who read aloud sections of leaflets distributed by the fascist British National Party. These scenes further add to the various manifestations of racism within the novel, emphasising how the xenophobia that the reader encounters is not simply a supernatural curse that is generations old, but a contemporary reality which can personally impact characters even in a familial context. In White is for Witching , neither the family nor the home, both traditionally associated with safety, can provide refuge. Oyeyemi’s novel subverts the trope of the monstrous, racialised Other, turning it back onto the white, colonial culture of England (indeed, the house has a fondness for the glory days of Rule Britannia). The uncanny is now the British family home. Sade, the Yoruba housekeeper, uses her culture’s charms and superstitions to counter the house’s malevolence. Ore, meanwhile, recalls the Nigerian folktale of the soucouyant, a shape-shifting old woman who feeds on the souls of her victims. She projects her understanding of this tale onto her experience of the haunted house, allowing her to defend herself against it. Miranda’s eating disorder leaves her pale and thin, visually recalling the vampire, a metaphor for the parasitic, colonial draining of resources and, indeed, her relationship with Ore leaves her lover in a similarly weakened state. A kissing scene towards the novel’s climax also heightens the novel’s supernatural elements and further troubles the boundaries between perception and reality. Drawing on Gothic tropes, Oyeyemi’s novel brilliantly conveys a sense of unease, foreboding, creeping uncertainty and inescapable decline throughout its narrative. Oyeyemi’s pages list various authors of dark fairytales and gothic stories which presumably shaped her writing, including the Brothers Grimm, E. T. A. Hoffman, and Sheridan LeFanu. However, it is the influence of Edgar Allen Poe which is felt most strongly in the novel. Humorously, one scene features Miranda and Eliot discuss how they could easily deal with the events of a Poe story. Indeed, one could view the novel as a reworking of The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), with its sentient home tied to a doomed bloodline. Oyeyemi’s story, like Poe’s, hints that there is an incestuous connection between the twins. Miranda possesses many characteristics shared by the Usher twins: she suffers from a mental illness which manifests itself physically, she has uncanny, pale white skin, and soft, ethereal hair. Like Roderick Usher, her fate is inseparable from the home. The reader is left to question whether she has control of her own actions. Upon the novel’s conclusion, it is natural to return once again to the prelude, now armed with the knowledge of what happens to Miranda and able to slice through its disorienting opacity. Yet, despite everything they have read, the reader will wonder about her fate long after the book is closed. This encouragement of circularity mimics the novel’s own themes, triggering many questions and unsettling any easy resolution. Although there are scattered, individual acts of resistance to the house and its xenophobia, it ultimately achieves its goal, raising the question of whether it is possible to break the cycle of victimhood and the continuity of a colonial past. Will the house, and by extension, the racist spectre of empire, continue to haunt British society forever?

Review of 'Sexe et mensonges' by Leïla Slimani Slimani’s interlocutors navigate their secret, but rich sexual lives, being constantly at risk of losing their social position and freedom. Their testimonies are often deeply saddening, but also witty and humorous. Most of them stress the society’s hypocrisy over sexuality, pointing out that the system promotes the exploitation and commercialization of the female body, while pretending to support “virtue”. Slimani leads the reader through these stories bringing different voices into a conversation by providing examples from Moroccan public life, scholarly articles, and her personal experiences. by Tamara Cvetković 17 March 2025 Review: Slimani, Leïla. Sexe et mensonges. Leïla Slimani’s first non-fiction book Sexe et mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies: Sexual life in Morocco) is a collection of essays based on the interviews the author conducted with Moroccan women of different ages and classes, as well as on the analysis of social and political events, laws, art works, and media reports on (repressed) sexuality in contemporary Moroccan society. Sexe et mensonges was first published in 2017 in French,[1] translated into Arabic in 2019, and into English in 2020 as Sex and lies: True Stories of Women’s Intimate Lives in the Arab World . The book is divided into eighteen chapters/essays, the core of which are interviews with women who wanted to remain anonymous, but also with public figures such as feminist writer and journalist Fedwa Misk, Islamic feminist Asma Lambert, and with men such as Nabil Ayouch, a filmmaker who made a documentary on prostitution, and Mustapha, a policeman with 25 years of experience in law enforcement. Through personal stories, the book offers a detailed overview of the harsh consequences of the state ban on extramarital sexual relations, including homosexual practices. In addition, it showcases Moroccan society’s public morality that allows everything if it is kept secret, nurturing the “culture of silence” concerning sexuality, female pleasure, abortion, STDs, sexual violence, and harassment. According to the testimonies, among the harshest consequences of the morality legislation are prison sentences for the most vulnerable citizens (the poor, women, LGBT persons) who were caught having extramarital sexual relations; unsafe illegal abortions; unreported cases of rape, which occasionally force the victims to marry their rapists; public humiliation and exclusion; denial of the basic rights and citizenship to children born out of marriage, which ultimately leads to the most extreme consequences such as infanticide or suicide. Among these circumstances, Slimani’s interlocutors navigate their secret, but rich sexual lives, being constantly at risk of losing their social position and freedom. Their testimonies are often deeply saddening, but also witty and humorous. Most of them stress society’s hypocrisy, pointing out that the system promotes the exploitation and commercialization of the female body while pretending to support “virtue”.[2] Slimani leads the reader through these stories bringing different voices into conversation by providing examples from Moroccan public life, scholarly articles, and her personal experiences. From the beginning of the book, the author’s position is clear. Slimani self-identifies as a middle-class person from a liberal background. This self-identification is important, as the author sees it as the source of her values and privilege within Moroccan society. Namely, Slimani argues that her background allowed her not only to nurture self-respect, bodily autonomy, and a belief that hatred, violence, and misogyny cannot be justified by any religion, but also to remain safe.[3] From that position, she draws attention to the class dimension of sexual repression, arguing that the poorest are the mostly affected by the morality law,[4] as law enforcement is selective and arbitrary, and targets the most vulnerable citizens. Importantly, she further argues that people who are not as privileged as her in terms of education, class, and family background, nor raised according to “liberal values”, can be just as well aware of their rights: But I have to say that in Morocco I have met hundreds of people who have not had all this and who, nonetheless, believe that we should live and let live, that every human being has a right to dignity and to safety. [5] By pointing out the class dimension, Slimani argues that the right to dignity and safety is not an exclusive feature of middle-class morality or Western cultures, but also a right aligned with the core principles of Moroccan culture.[6]I find this claim important for understanding the different sides of public debate in Moroccan society. Namely, Slimani emphasizes the role that the binary opposition between West/modernity/“universal Enlightenment values” and “traditional” Islamic societies plays in debates about sex in Morocco. Talking from within this binary, Slimani seems to anticipate critique from both sides of the spectrum, claiming that privileged French liberal scholars will accuse her of Orientalism, reinforcement of stereotypes about Arab societies and Islamophobia, while Moroccan conservatives will accuse her of promoting “westernized decadence and liberalism of its elites.”[7] She argues that people suffering in prisons are not her Orientalist fantasies but reality, and calls for the ending of this opposition:[8] We need to stop pitting Islam and universal Enlightenment values against each other, stop opposing Islam and equality of the sexes, Islam and sensual pleasure.[9] While her call for dismantling this binary opposition is an important step in further building her arguments, Slimani does not problematize the values of the “liberal West”, nor middle-class morality, which sometimes leads to contradictory statements. For example, recalling the public outrage that accompanied the concert by Jennifer Lopez in 2015, who was criticized for sexually “provocative” dancing and outfit, Slimani remembers being “shocked” by the fact that Moroccan middle-class liberals called Jennifer Lopez a “whore.”[10] She further expresses similar, but affirmative shock when her housekeeper, whom she considered a conservative woman, expressed “progressive” attitudes by stating that the silence about sexuality is oppressive towards women, but also bad for Islam.[11] Unfortunately, Slimani remains “shocked”, instead of questioning the foundations of liberal middle-class morality, which has a lot in common with the “culture of silence” she argues against. In addition to that, while her conversations with the interlocutors stress the need for emancipation, and the importance of the education of youth, especially boys, about sexual rights, and women’s rights for overcoming the challenges within Moroccan society, Slimani does not extend her critical approach to the contradictions of European societies. For example, she often makes comparisons with Europe, particularly France as a place where the challenges that Moroccan women and girls are facing are non-existent and/or hardly imaginable, without mentioning the challenges that Muslim girls and women face in France, and without addressing the oppression of women in Europe.[12] I argue that an explicit critique of middle-class morality and complexities within Europe would allow the author to build a stronger argument against the binary opposition of Western modernity/Islamic traditionalism. Together with that, the book offers a valuable analysis of the debate on sexuality and women’s rights within Moroccan society. Slimani argues that Moroccan authorities are also ambiguous regarding the opposition of (Western) modernity vs. (Islamic) traditionalism, as testified by the psychiatrist Jalil Bennani, who participated in a series of public debates organized by Moroccan state authorities on abortion in 2015. Bennani claimed that politically liberal “modernists” were more hesitant to advocate for legal access to abortion, while “hard-line Islamists” were more open for discussion and negotiation,[13] revealing that these debates are more nuanced and complex than expected. In addition, even though in most of the chapters Slimani takes the Enlightenment and Western liberal values as universal and non-problematic, she also provides valuable insights for critiquing these values and dismantling the binary division Western modernity/Islamic traditionalism. In the chapter “All the religions are the same when it comes to sex” Slimani analyzes the works of scholars of Islamic culture to reveal that there is a centuries-long tradition of thematizing eroticism and sensuality in Islamic literature. According to this analysis, in Islamic literature faith was not confronted with desire, but rather intertwined with it, and sexual pleasure was seen as divine, while orgasm was compared with the “delights in paradise.”[14] She argues that the arrival of “puritanical” views on sexuality coincides with the decline of political and economic power in Arab countries at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and with the region’s subsequent colonization by Europeans. According to her the imposition of puritan views primarily served as a means of prevention of sexual relations between settlers and native women.[15] Slimani points out that the Moroccan morality law that bans homosexuality originates from the French penal code that was repealed in 1982. Further, Slimani provides important information about rich Islamic traditions that are neither conservative nor sexually repressive. She introduces the views of Avbdelwahab Bouhdiba, a scholar of sexuality, who argues that sexual freedom cannot be a copied Western model, but rather achieved through faith, relying on Islamic traditions.[16] Slimani also interviews pathologist and theology scholar Asma Lamrabet from the Centre for Women’s Studies in Islam, who goes back to close reading of Quran to support her feminist arguments. Lamrabet points out that the Quran does not deal with matters of sexuality and that virginity is not even mentioned once in the whole text. In her interpretation, women are conceptualized as free human beings in the Quran. Moreover, Lamrabet argues that over time rigidity took over the place of compassion, affection, and intimacy that were historically present in Islamic societies.[17] Lamrabet advocates for a decolonial model, rather than the Western, and points out that the liberation of women to make their own choices requires a non-hegemonic strategy, a development of a new approach.[18] I find this chapter central to the whole book, as it offers a critical approach to the traditions, as well as possible paths for analyzing social and historical complexities instead of reinforcing hierarchical binary oppositions. In conclusion, Sex and Lies offers brave, lucid, witty, and valuable testimonies about the sexual lives of Moroccan women of different ages, educational backgrounds, and classes, inclusive of lesbian experiences; then testimonies of young women who had no other option but to engage in prostitution to support their families; testimonies of married, divorced, and unmarried women who speak freely about desire and practice sexual pleasures despite of repressive circumstances. The book offers a convincing critique of Moroccan laws and public morality related to sexuality and provides an important argument that sexually repressive measures are not derived from Islamic tradition. By providing more details on the French colonial origins of the Moroccan repressive legislation, Slimani could build a stronger argument both against Moroccan conservatives who, according to her, would argue that sexual repression is an Islamic tradition, and against French liberal intellectuals whom she suspects would accuse her of Islamophobia and Orientalism. In fact, this book challenges the Orientalist stereotypes about Islamic societies, and especially about Muslim women in many ways. What I find missing from Slimani’s analysis is the critique of European colonialism and misogyny; a problematization of the strands of the Enlightenment that offered no rights or freedom to women; and ultimately, the critique of so-called middle-class morality. I argue that these elements, sorely missing from her analysis, are core to the contemporary rise of far-right movements in Europe, which are also oppressive towards sexual freedoms and women’s rights. In that sense, I consider that a critique of “universal Enlightenment values,” would allow Slimani to build a more convincing argument for overcoming binary oppositions and hierarchies. [1] The title of the French original is Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle au Maroc [2] Slimani, Leïla. 2020. Sex and Lies . Translated by Sophie Lewis. Faber & Faber. Society on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, p. 58 [3] Sex and Lies , pp. 68-69 [4] Sex and Lies , p. 2 [5] Ibid., p. 70 [6] p. 70 [7] p. 5 [8] p. 70 [9] P. 7 [10] p. 63 [11] p. 72 [12] p. 15, p. 19, etc. [13] p. 31 [14] p. 94 [15] p. 94 [16] p. 95 [17] p. 102 [18] p. 102 References: Slimani, Leïla. Sex and Lies. Translated by Sophie Lewis. Faber & Faber, 2020. Kindle.

Tamara Cvetković Tamara Cvetković holds a master’s degree in Gender Studies from Central European University and bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Belgrade. Prior to her engagement as a Junior Visiting Researcher within the EUTERPE Project: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective and the enrollment in Ph.D. Program in Comparative Gender Studies at CEU in 2023/2024, she spent several years working as a program manager in an NGO based in Serbia that dealt with migration issues, intercultural education, and interdisciplinary approaches to transcultural phenomena. Over this period, her main areas of interest were gender studies, transnational migration, postcolonialism/decolonial theory, Orientalism/Balkanism, feminist and critical pedagogy, use of literature and art in activism. Research topic My research focuses on the literary production of transnational women-identified contemporary authors from the Balkans whose work thematize migration, identity, linguistic and cultural translation, as well as their complex relationships with literary ‘classics.’ Focusing mainly on the authors from the Western Balkans, I plan to analyze border-crossings and travelling though physical and imagined geographies, fictional worlds, literary traditions and genres, and cultural traditions with an aim to map their trajectories through the lens of feminist interpretation as well as to map cultural translations that are framing their works. In addition, my aim is to explore the ways in which they (re)use literary ‘classics’ in revolutionary ways (Standford Friedman, 2019) to create new works, and how these works continue their transnational circulation. Previous Next

Nino Haratischvili’s 'The Eighth Life': An Intergenerational Tale of Sisters, Sunflower Seeds and Cherry Liqueur Haratischvili’s novel joins a tradition of feminist authors who give voice to the unique ways in which war, famine, dictatorship, and revolution are experienced by caregivers and women. by Evangeline Scarpulla 25 February 2025 Review: Haratischvili, Nino. The Eighth Life: (for Brilka). Translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin. (London: Scribe Publications, 2019). [1] Can reconstructing the stories of our ancestors help us to better understand ourselves? What stories do people share and what secrets do they keep? How far do family ties stretch? How does one survive when social and political circumstances carry them down unforeseen paths? These are some of the questions author Nino Haratischvili grapples with in her epic 935-page novel about the multi-generational Jashi family, an upper-class Georgian family from a small town outside of Tbilisi. At once a novel of mis-adventure, love, and tragedy, Haratischvili frames the century-long story through the eyes of Niza, who is recording the stories of her family for her young niece and friend Brilka. As the reader, we follow Niza as she recounts the tales that her great-grandmother Stasia told her about the past five generations of Jashis. As each section of the seven-part novel progresses, we eagerly anticipate the introduction of new characters, and yearn for happy endings for those we have grown attached to. Amidst these stories, Haratischvili expertly weaves an informed historical account of life in Georgia during the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, as experienced by an extensive cast of children, grandmothers, soldiers, academics, KGB officers, activists, poets, rebels, and dancers. The novel is framed as a collection of stories passed down through over five generations of women. Narrated by Niza and addressed to Brilka, the book is intended as a gift of family history for the youngest Jashi woman. Through this complex narrative framing, Haratischvili emphasises the importance of family ties, the value of sisterhood, and the significance of inherited knowledge. The frequent asides in which Niza directly addresses Brilka, and the use of second-person narration, encourages readers to see through Brilka’s eyes and to feel as though they too are part of the Jashi family’s history. When Brilka enters the story as a primary character towards the end of the novel, the narration shifts to third-person, and the novel’s addressee – a girl of fourteen with a passion for dancing and an intense desire to know where she comes from – begins to take on a personality and voice of her own. Through these subtle narrative techniques, Haratischvili accomplishes the task of drawing in the reader and eliciting an emotional investment in the characters’ stories. In many ways, the novel reads as a long and liberating gossip session exchanged between sisters over a glass of cherry liqueur. The openness and vulnerability with which Niza invites her niece Brilka to explore her family’s past, which includes tales of trauma and loss, shows the mutual trust and affection that form between these two women as a result of their shared history. At times, one questions whether the young Brilka will be able to process the often violent stories which her aunt recounts. However, by the end of the novel, it is clear that Brilka has a right to these histories, because they are the ones that ferried the other women in her family through the currents of their lives to the point of her conception. Many reviewers have drawn comparisons between Haratischvili’s novel and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1867). These connections have been drawn because of the novel’s emphasis on the political and historical context of the character’s lives, the polyphonic narrative style, and the internal references to Tolstoy’s novels. However, the thoughtful reader should consider the problematic implications of comparing or equating a distinctly Georgian narrative – which critically reflects on the history of Georgia’s subjugation under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union – to a classic Russian novel. Furthermore, Haratischvili’s novel focalises women’s voices and their perspectives on war, family, and nation, contrasting significantly with the largely male perspectives through which Tolstoy’s narrative, one firmly rooted in the patriarchal canon, is told. Indeed, Haratischvili’s playful and imaginative language, the fantastical elements of the novel, and the specific focus on the lives and experiences of the women in the Jashi family is perhaps more reminiscent of Isabel Allende’s multigenerational magical realist novel The House of the Spirits (1982), or Laura Esquivel’s novella Like Water for Chocolate (1989), in which the main character has the ability to imbue her cooking with her desires and intentions, giving the dishes mystical properties similar to those of the hot chocolate that appears as a mysterious thread linking the tragedies and events that occur in The Eighth Life . Haratischvili’s novel joins a tradition of feminist authors who give voice to the unique ways in which war, famine, dictatorship, and revolution are experienced by caregivers and women. Despite the graphic nature of the more traumatic moments in the novel, the reader is bolstered by the undeniable hope and support that permeates the relationships between the Jashi women and provides them with the strength to endure their social and political circumstances. This is most acutely illustrated by the account of Kitty’s return home after she endures brutal and violent questioning at the hands of the NKVD. Afterwards, Kitty finds solidarity and understanding in her relationship with her aunt, Christine, who is a survivor herself. While sharing her story, Kitty runs her hands over Christine’s face, a face scarred by an acid attack, ‘in the hope that by studying Christine’s map she would be able to create her own. A map of her own that would show her how to go on living. A survival map.’ [2] By telling these stories the narrator provides Brilka with her own survival map, one made up of the lifelines belonging to the women of her past. Another parallel between Haratischvili’s novel and the work of feminist writers like Isabel Allende is the undercurrent of unexplained, magical, and uncanny elements. As mentioned earlier, the family’s tantalising and indulgent hot chocolate recipe, invented by Stasia’s father in the early 20th century, is more than just the secret to his success. It becomes a part of the Jashi family lore, made by those seeking comfort in times of strife, and feared for its tendency to ‘bring about calamity’ in the lives of those who taste it.[3] This curse, coupled with the fact that much of the novel’s plot is triggered by events that occur at a Gatsby-esque masquerade ball in the lively and colourful hills of Tbilisi, lends the narrative a carnivalesque tone, foregrounding the absurd, surreal and humorous in the tale. These fantastical elements are particularly present in the characterisation of the family’s matriarch, Niza’s great-grandmother Stasia. For example, Stasia’s introduction in the story is framed as a mythologised incident of birth: She came into the world – so I was told – in the coldest winter at the dawn of the twentieth century. She had a headful of hair; you could have plaited it, they said. And with her first cry she was, in fact, already dancing. They said she laughed as she cried, as if she were crying more to reassure the adults, her parents, the midwives, the country doctor, not because she had to. And they said that with her first steps she was already describing a pas de deux. And that she loved chocolate, always. And that before she could say ‘Father’ she was babbling Madame Butterfly. [4] Stasia’s eccentric nature grows throughout the century long narrative, reflected by the magical and anthropomorphic wildness of the fairy-tale dwellings she inhabits. She seems to grow younger and younger with each passing year, is known for her lucidity and her quick tongue, and is eager to react with stubbornness and profanity to her son’s controlling nature and the events of the world. Stasia’s clarity and youthful spirit are offset by the strange power she develops to see and talk to the dead, which grows as, one-by-one, her loved ones join the ranks of the ghosts. Because of the way that Haratischvili lightly dances back and forth across the line of magical storytelling and realism, by the end of the novel the reader is left wondering if hot chocolate can really kill and whether they will one day see the dead playing cards in their garden. The Eighth Life is a masterful mixing of fact and fiction and a window into Georgian history and culture – complete with images of Tbilisi, sunflower seeds, chacha, and horses native to the Georgian steppe. It is approachable for readers unacquainted with the history of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus, and the Cold War, but offers unique insight for others with greater familiarity. The references and accounts of real-life figures such as ‘The Generalissimus’, and ‘The Little Big Man,’ are integrated with the stories of fictional characters, such as Giorgi Alania and Konstantin Jashi, who in the novel also occupy significant government positions in the Soviet Union. Additionally, each chapter begins with a quote, taken from a variety of historical sources including Vladimir Lenin, Soviet poster slogans, Anton Chekhov, David Bowie, and The Taming of the Shrew. The attentive reader will notice the occasional instances when Haratischvili attributes one of these epigraphs to a fictional character in the novel, such as the exiled Patti Smith-esque singer songwriter Kitty Jashi. Through this intertextuality, the author seamlessly integrates her fictional characters into the cultural and political history of the 20th-century, and leaves the reader wondering where the history ends, and the fiction begins. The final page of this seven-part story contains only one line: the chapter title ‘Book VIII: Brilka.’ [5] This open-ended conclusion invites the young Brilka to continue the saga of the Jashi family with her own ongoing story. Thus, Haratischvili’s novel, so often about pain and loss, ends as one full of hope and love, leaving the reader with the intense desire to explore their own family history, and a deeper understanding of Georgian history and culture. [1] This translation is translated from the original German. Readers should note that there are some phonetic inconsistencies between the English spellings and the Georgian names and terms. [2] Nino Haratischvili, The Eighth Life: (for Brilka) , trans. by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin (London: Scribe Publications, 2019), p. 227. [3] Haratischvili, p. 49. [4] Haratischvili, pp. 16-17. [5] Haratischvili, p. 935.

Ruins, Fragments, and the Word: War, Memory, and Utopian Vision in H.D.’s Late Poetry with Raffaella Baccolini This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Susan Stanford Friedman. Susan Stanford Friedman's work was seminal for the conception of EUTERPE, and we deeply grieve her passing. She was not only a highly respected and influential scholar, but also a special friend known for her warm personality and intellectual generosity. This lecture series was created in her honour, to celebrate her legacy and to keep her presence alive. 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 examines H.D.’s Trilogy (1944–1946) as a poetic response to the devastation of the London Blitz, where ruins and fragments become the ground for a visionary reimagining of culture and survival. Written amid destruction, Trilogy does not retreat into nostalgia but forges continuity through acts of remembrance and re-vision. Drawing on mythological, religious, and cultural palimpsests, H.D. enacts an alchemy of language that both records trauma and insists on the regenerative power of words. This lecture was originally delivered on 17/09/2025 at the fifth biannual EUTERPE Doctoral School, held at The University of Bologna in Bologna, Italy. The episode transcript can be accessed here : https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:b1d8e967-5a02-4d2c-a687-cbe6bb5453f3 . The accompanying lecture slides can be viewed here : https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:dac1b378-434b-4f01-b2d3-097fe0e47001 . This episode is part of the EUTERPE podcast Library on European Literatures and Genders from a Transnational Perspective. The podcast is powered by the European Union, UKRI, and the Central European University Library. Grant Agreement: 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project. For more information about the EUTERPE project please refer to the official project webpage https://www.euterpeproject.eu/ , or follow us on Instagram @euterpe_project_ or Facebook at EUTERPE Doctoral Network Project . This episode was edited by Evangeline Scarpulla. Thank you to Alexander Walker for the music and to Alice Flinta for the voice over. Thank you also to Ninutsa Nadirashvili and Kris Orszaghova for designing the podcast covers.