Online lecture in the Transnationalism Seminar Series, 22 January 2026, 12.00 CET

Current Committee member Natalya Bekhta (Tampere), Stanisław Krawczyk (Wrocław), Jana-Katharina Mende (Halle), Denys Shatalov (Kryvyi Rih/Berlin) and Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg) have jointly organised an online seminar series on transnationalism. This lecture within the series will take place on 22 January 2026, at 12.00 CET. Join via Zoom (link).

Jasmina Lukić will speak about “Transnational Turn in Literary Studies”

The lecture explores the outcomes of transnational turn in literary studies looking into different conceptualizations of transnational literature. These developments are inextricably connected to the current debates on world literature and global literature. Hence the lecture will address the specific position of the concept of transnational literature in between the concepts of the national and the world literature. Staring from the early 2000s, it is possible to follow several main lines in thinking about the key features of contemporary transnational literature, the qualities that distinguish this specific body of literary texts and the critical tools required for their interpretation. Throughout the 2000s the concept gradually got more prominence in academia with the focus on the questions of multilingualism and various forms of cross-border experiences. Seyhan Azade sees transnational texts as ‘diasporic narratives’ written in a second language, Mads Thomsen connects transnational with comparative and postcolonial literature, and Paul Jay emphasizes broadness and eclecticism in readings of the contemporary transnationalism. This discussion is not limited to actual experiences of migration. Murizio Ascari exlopres the significance of trancsultural relations, and Rebeca Walkowicz introduces the concept of “born translated” literary texts. The related questions of gender are also highly revenant here. Sandra Ponzanesi focusses on women writers, as well as Susan Friedman, who introduces the concept of transnational feminist literacy as a powerful tool of feminist literary criticism. The range of ideas that these authors bring forward sets a particular theoretical and critical framework for reading contemporary transnational literature.

Jasmina Lukić is Professor with the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University in Vienna, and the Principal Leader of EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective, a Marie Curie Doctoral Network project (101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project, 2022-269).She has published two monographs and numerous articles and book chapters in literary studies, women’s studies, and Slavic studies.

The seminar series is hosted by the research network “Young Network TransEurope” based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.