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University of York Boriana Alexandrova Principal Investigator Nicoletta Asciuto Researcher

About the Project EUTERPE The Consortium Doctoral Candidates

Carla Rodríguez González University of Oviedo Researcher Carla Rodríguez González is Senior lecturer in English at the University of Oviedo, Spain, where she teaches in the Erasmus Mundus GEMMA and in the Gender and Diversity Master’s Degrees. Her research focuses on contemporary Scottish literature, as well as on postcolonial, gender, space and cultural studies. She is co-PI (with Isabel Carrera Suárez) of the research project “World-travelling: Narratives of Solidarity and Coalition in Contemporary Writing and Performance” (2022-2025), funded by the Spanish National R&D Programme. She was the coordinator of the Gender and Diversity Master’s Degree at the University of Oviedo, Spain (2019-2023). Publications: "Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay" In A Companion to Scottish Literature . First edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2024. Durán-Almarza, Emilia María, Carla Rodríguez González, and Suzanne Clisby. Performing Cultures of Equality. Routledge, 2022.

Utrecht University Sandra Ponzanesi Principal Investigator Birgit M. Kaiser Researcher

Kris Országhová Central European University Project Administrator Kris Orszaghova (they/them) holds a Master’s in Artistic Research from Hogeschool Voor de Kunsten Utrecht and a PhD in Sociology from Charles University in Prague. Kris Orszaghova (they/them) holds a Master’s in Artistic Research from Hogeschool Voor de Kunsten Utrecht and a PhD in Sociology from Charles University in Prague. As an artist-athlete-scholar, they explore the intersections of art and social inquiry. Their research focuses on bodies moving and shifting, meandering and at times floating between the urban centres and peripheries, borders both real and imaginary, between hopes and disillusionments, despair and commitment, discipline and disobedience. Currently, Kris is a visiting faculty and coordinator at the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University and a junior coordinator for EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective, a Marie Curie Doctoral Network. In addition to their research, Kris has participated in various exhibitions, including "To Seminar" at bak (basis voor actuale kunst) "Poetry & Performance: The Eastern European Perspective" at Nová synagóga in Žilina, or "Possibility of Preserving" at Kunsthalle Bratislava. Publications: "Turn the Volume Up! Boxing Hearts and Beats", featured in Boxing, Narrative and Culture (Routledge, 2023) "The Gender of Bruising: A Critical Literature Review on Gender in Boxing," published in Sociology Compass (2023).

Team Utrecht Sandra Ponzanesi Principal Investigator Sandra Ponzanesi is Chair and full Professor of Media, Gender and Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, Netherlands, where she is also the Founding Director of the Postcolonial Studies Initiative (PCI ). She has published widely in the field of media, postcolonial studies, digital migration and cinema, with a particular focus on Postcolonial Europe from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. She is currently project leader of the project ‘Virtual Reality as Empathy Machine : Media, Migration and the Humanitarian Predicament ’ funded by NWO (Dutch Research Council) and Utrecht University PI with Birgit Kaiser in the MSCA EUTERPE project on ‘European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective’, responsible for (WP 5, WP6): Transnational women intellectuals, multilingualism and decolonising European pedagogies. More info: https://www.uu.nl/staff/SPonzanesi Birgit M. Kaiser Researcher Birgit M. Kaiser is Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. She holds a BA and MA in Sociology from Bielefeld University and a PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University. In fall 2009/2010, Birgit was Chair of Western European Literatures (Vertretungsprofessur) at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder). Birgit has also been visiting researcher at the Department of Philosophy at Paris Nanterre University (spring 2017) and at the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University (fall 2017/2018), as well as DFG-Mercatorfellow at Leuphana University Lüneburg (fall 2023/24). Research profile Birgit's research spans literatures in English, French and German from the 19th to the 21st centuries, always with a focus on literature as a mode of poetic knowledge production. Specific research interests are the relation of literature and philosophy, theories of subjectivity (post-structuralist, feminist new materialist, psychoanalytic, and ecosophical), the history of aesthetics and affect, multilingualism and un/translatability in literature, as well as post- and decolonial literary critique. Intersecting post/decolonial with feminist new materialist approaches, Birgit also works on changing forms of critique and criticality in the 21st century, as well as contemporary methods of reading. Research collaborations and leadership With Kathrin Thiele, Birgit founded the interdisciplinary research network Terra Critica and together they coordinate the network since its beginning in 2012. Terra Critica holds annual international academic meetings as well as regular ReadingRoom sessions for a wider public in Utrecht (in collaboration with Casco Art Institute). The network has established collaborations with a range of leading international academic institutions in Europe, Australia, the USA and Asia. She is currently coordinator of the research community "Critical Pathways ", an interdisciplinary research community within the UU strategic theme Pathways to Sustainability, focusing on a just sustainability. "Critical Pathways" brings together colleagues from the faculties of Humanities, Geosciences, Social and Behavioural Sciences, and Law, Economics and Governance. "Critical Pathways" researches how to move beyond an understanding of sustainability narrowly focused on technological solutions and how to address social and cultural norms, political power relations, and global inequalities in order to make more sustainable futures possible. Since 2022, Birgit is researcher and supervisor in the EU-HORIZON MSCA Doctoral Network "European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective" (EUTERPE ; 2022-2026), which brings together gender and transnational perspectives within an interdisciplinary approach to literary and cultural studies. EUTERPE is a collaboration of Central European University Vienna, University of Oviedo, University of Granada, University of York, University of Coventry, University of Lodz, University of Bolgona and Utrecht University, supervising and training a group of eleven PhD candidates. In this context, Birgit is also on the editorial board of the open source publication Dictionary of Transnational Women’s Literature in Europe (CEU Press) with key concepts and bio-bibliographic entries on leading representatives of the field. Between 2016-2020, she was a core member and researcher of “Creativity in World Literatures: Languages in Dialogue”, a research network funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council within the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI). Publications Her book Figures of Simplicity. Sensation and Thinking in Kleist and Melville (SUNY 2011) explores—with recourse to Heinrich von Kleist, Herman Melville, G. W. Leibniz, and Alexander Baumgarten—alternative conceptions of aesthetics and dimensions of thinking lost in the disciplinary narration of aesthetics after Kant. Rather than being ignorant or stupid, the “simpletons” that populate the writings of Kleist and Melville display a way of affective thinking, whereby Kleist and Melville continue a key line within eighteenth-century aesthetics: the relation of rationality and sensibility. The book reflects on what thinking looks like if we take affectivity into account and how literature is a practice that continues to raise this question. Birgit's second monograph Hélène Cixous's Poetics of Voice: Echo - Subjectivity - Diffraction (Bloomsbury Publishers 2024, open access) is part of the series Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women’s Writing (editors Marie Mulvey-Roberts and Jennifer Gustarargues). It argues that Cixous's poetic fictions, from 1967 to today and in critical conversation with psychoanalysis, present Echo as a figure of relational subjectivity. The book demonstrates how Cixous's writings offer an anti-narcissistic figuration of selfhood that can be called ec(h)ological: critical of colonial appropriation and patriarchal oppression of difference, Cixous pursues how we are always embedded in ecologies with many others, and at the same time how we always carefully negotiate myriads of echoes that make up an "I". Cixous's poetic fictions thereby offer an important critique of modern Man and an alternative fabulation of being human in the Anthropocene. In the context of her research on subjectivity and post/decolonial critique, Birgit has published two edited volumes : Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze. Colonial Pasts, Differential Futures (with Lorna Burns, Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and Singularity and Transnational Poetics (Routledge 2015). With Kathrin Thiele, she edited a special issue of PhiloSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism , entitled ‘The Ends of Being Human? Re-turning (to) the Question’ (8/1, 2018). Another edited volume entitled The World in Theory. Rethinking Globalization Through Derrida and Nancy (with Laurens ten Kate and Philip Leonard; Edinburgh University Press) is currently in preparation (forthcoming 2024). Birgit's work has appeared in international journals including Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, International Journal for Francophone Studies, Interventions, Parallax and Textual Practice. She is currently also member of the editorial board of the Dictionary of Transnational Women's Literature in Europe (with Jasmina Lukic (editor-in-chief) and the editorial board of the HORIZON DC-network EUTERPE, Vienna: CEU Press, forthcoming 2027). In the interdisciplinary research network Terra Critica , Birgit's research focuses on the future of the humanities and their critical heritage, as well as on changing forms of critique and criticality in the 21st century. She has edited with Kathrin Thiele a special issue of Parallax on ‘Diffracted Worlds – Diffractive Readings: Onto-Epistemologies and the Critical Humanities ’ (2014; also republished as book in the Routledge Series SPIB , 2018) and two edited volumes : Symptoms of the Planetary Condition: A Critical Vocabulary (with Kathrin Thiele and Mercedes Bunz; meson press 2017, open access) and The Ends of Critique (with Timothy O’Leary and Kathrin Thiele; Rowman & Littlefield 2022, open access). Another Terra Critica collaboration is in preparation (Thinking About Doing: Practice and Theory Across Continents (edited with Anirban Das and Kathrin Thiele; forthcoming with Oxford University Press India, 2025). With Timothy O’Leary and Kathrin Thiele, Birgit is also editor of the book-series New Critical Humanities (Rowman & Littlefield). Links Terra Critica: Interdisciplinary Network for the Critical Humanities Critical Pathways Gender & Diversity - Institutions for Open Societies New Critical Humanities book series (Rowman & Littlefield International) Academia.edu

Alice Flinta University of York Doctoral Candidate Alice’s research interests have developed in the fields of translation, postcolonial, transnational, and migrant literature; she has conducted archival research on Franco-Algerian writer Albert Camus’s manuscripts, and in her master’s thesis she explored how French author Michel Houellebecq reconceptualises Camus’s absurd, adapting it to the contemporary world. Modern languages are an integral part of Alice’s research: she is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish and is currently learning Russian. A creative writing and translation enthusiast, her poems have been shortlisted in regional competitions on multiple occasions; in the context of promoting Finnish literature in Italy, some of Alice’s translations from English into Italian are published online. Alice is undertaking her PhD in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York, where she also completed her BA in English and Related Literature. She holds a Masters in Comparative Literature from the University of St Andrews. Alice’s research - "Over Borders and Languages: Rethinking Transnationality in Europe Through Mediterranean Women’s Writings" - is rooted in the core belief that literature helps us understand and challenge our current political reality. For the EUTERPE project she is working on how transnational Mediterranean literature by women shapes a new sense of transnationality in Europe and challenges how we think of Europeanness. With a focus on the literature of contemporary translingual, migrant and second-generation women writers, Alice’s project explores the intersection of gender, race, languages, and colonial histories and how it affects migrant writers’ narratives of identity formation, transnationalism, multilingualism, and translation. Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory and Paul B. Preciado’s work are at the core of the project’s theoretical framework. Contributions: Contested Communities: Small, Minority and Minor Literatures in Europe ed. by Kate Averis, Margaret Littler and Godela Weiss-Sussex (review) Review of Rosso come una sposa by Anilda Ibrahimi Making Waves... of Words. Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature : French Writers, White Writing by Étienne Achille and Oana Panaïté (review)

Angela Harris Sánchez University of Granada Researcher Angela Harris Sánchez holds a BA in Art history (Granada University), an MPhil in Art Therapy (Complutense University), the GEMMA double Erasmus Mundus Master and a double International PhD in Women's Studies, Discourses and Gender Practices (UGR) and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (University of Bologna). She has been a National Research Fellow (FPU) and is now UGR-Postdoc and lecturer in the Archaeology Department. Publications: Queering Power: Affective Relational Anarchies, F(r)ictions and Disidentifications beyond Identity, Universidad de Almería, (2024). “Artherapy, Queer Failure and Horizontal Learning Experience in Students’ Postmemory Family Narratives” in Feminist Literary and Filmic Cultures for Social Action . Gender Response-able Labs. London and New York: Routledge (2024)

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Emilia M. Durán-Almarza University of Oviedo Researcher Emilia M. Durán-Almarza is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She specializes in Caribbean and Afro-diasporic postcolonial writing and performance. She regularly publishes her research at international peer reviewed journals. In EUTERPE, she serves as leader of WP6, “The role of transnational literatures in the decolonization of understandings of gender within the European academe”, where she supervises Uthara Geetha’s PhD project. Her research focus includes excavating the presence of Anglophone African and Caribbean women writers in Europe. Publications: Durán-Almarza, E.M., Kabir, A.J., & Rodríguez González, C. (Eds.). (2019). Debating the Afropolitan (1st ed.). Routledge. Durán-Almarza, E.M., Rodríguez González, C., & Clisby, S. (Eds.). (2022). Performing Cultures of Equality (1st ed.). Routledge.

Reading for Each Other Review of 'The Eighth Life' by Nino Haratischvili 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 Petra Scarpulla Review of ‘The Emperor's Babe' by Bernadine Evaristo Evaristo boldly challenges the prevailing notion of Britain as a white man’s nation by interweaving Roman history with elements of contemporary Black British culture and fiction, offering alternative visions of London. In doing so, she skilfully illuminates the often-overlooked histories of the African diaspora within both Roman and British contexts, while exercising creative license to craft a compelling counter-historical narrative. by Uthara Geetha Review of 'Dogs of Summer' by Andrea Abreu Abreu's novel places provincial life at the center stage and transforms the ordinary experiences of two young adolescents into extraordinary. Also, the novel celebrates the Canarian Spanish dialect and language difference and invites the reader to experience the narrative through a descriptive narration and imagery. by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto 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 Review of 'Exquisite Cadavers' by Meena Kandasamy From the outset, Kandasamy expresses her intention to separate the biographical from fiction. Yet, the autobiographical elements that she registers on the text’s margins spill over into the “main” text, blurring the boundaries between personal and fictional. One may ask if Exquisite Cadavers can exist without its margins; however, such a question is predicated on the assumption that the margin is a separable entity that can somehow be extracted from the novel proper. The margins are not merely experimental additions; they drive the text, adding theoretical and political arguments informed by the author’s material and lived experiences. by Samriddhi Pandey Review of 'Rosso come una sposa' by Anilda Ibrahimi Ibrahimi writes in swift sentences that mirror the simple, yet tortured, living of her characters, whilst giving voice to the complexities of human relationships – a fine balancing act between the innocence of young voices and the weight of words passed down through bodies that carry their pasts. by Alice Flinta Reviews 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 Review of 'Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi While reading Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, three major questions emerge. First, who can colonize or be colonized? Second, is war anything but a personal matter? And third, is the idea of a return just as much of a myth as the Golden Fleece? by Ninutsa Nadirashvili Review of 'Down with the Poor!' by Shumona Sinha An evocative portrayal of those who arrive but never truly ‘arrive.’ Down with the Poor! is a novel about borderlands—geographic, linguistic, and personal. by Laura Bak Cely

Boriana Alexandrova University of York Principal Investigator Dr Boriana Alexandrova is Senior Lecturer in Women’s Studies at the University of York, UK and (together with Dr Nicoletta Asciuto from York’s Department of English & Related Literature) is the Primary Investigator on EUTERPE’s WP10 at York, a part of EUTERPE’s “Translational Genres” research cluster, co-supervising DC 10, Alice Flinta. At York, the team is focusing on creative and (translation) practice-led methods of research into multilingual writers’ innovative ways of crossing the borders between forms, genres, genders, and cultural, racial, and embodied positionalities. Dr Alexandrova brings expertise in literary multilingualism and translation theory, queer and gender studies, artistic and practice-led research methodologies, the medical humanities, and feminist disability studies from European modernism to the contemporary. Current research collaborations include a 5-year archival excavation, translation, and anthologisation project on the untranslated late writings of queer and multilingual Surrealist couple Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, with Dr Birgit Kaiser (Utrecht University), and a new project on “Translingual Pedagogies” with Dr Jaya Jacobo (Coventry University). Publications: Joyce, Multilingualism, and the Ethics of Reading (Palgrave 2020) “Gender and Feminism” in Contemporary Literature and the Body (Bloomsbury 2023, ed. Alice Hall”) “Babababblin’ Drolleries and Multilingual Phonologies: Developing a Multilingual Ethics of Embodiment through Finnegans Wake ” (European Joyce Studies 2016).