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. Her most recent publications are the edited volume Times of Mobility: Transnational Literature and Gender in Translation (with Sibelan Forrester and Borbála Faragó, CEU Press 2019), “Reading Transnationally: Literary Transduction as a Feminist Tool”, in Swati Arora, Petra Bakos-Jarrett, Redi Koobak, Nina Lykke, and Kharnita Mohamed (eds.), Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms: And Words Collide from a Place (Routledge 2024) and “Between Zagreb, Berlin and Amsterdam: Dubravka Ugrešić as a Translocal Writer”, in Umjetnost riječi LXIX (2025), 2, Zagreb, Srpanj/Prosinac, 261-280, DOI: doi.org/10.22210/ur.2025.069.2/03.  ;
Zoom link for the seminars (valid for all sessions): LINK
An online seminar series, focused on East/Central Europe within the international and transnational academic and cultural context.
In an age when walls are being rebuilt — physically, politically, and epistemically — transnationalism is no longer just a buzzword. It has re-emerged as one of the most pressing cultural and intellectual questions of our time. Brexit, Trump’s return, and the steady rise of nationalist and illiberal movements across Europe and beyond have shaken the very idea of cross-border solidarities. Yet these new nationalisms are themselves transnational phenomena: they feed on circulating narratives, shared symbols, and contagious affects that move across borders and media.
Our seminar series, Reclaiming Transnationalism, revisits the concept as both an analytical framework and a socio-cultural phenomenon. Rather than seeking a comprehensive account of neo-nationalisms, we focus on concrete lines of inquiry: transnational comparisons, cultural and literary production across genres and media, and the symbolic geographies of contested borderlands such as the Donbas or Upper Silesia. We explore how transnationalism emerges in video games, literature, film studies,memory practices, and intellectual life — as method, as critique, and as lived cultural reality.
By centering East-Central and Eastern Europe, we test the promise and limits of transnationalism in regions marked by shifting borders, imperial legacies, migration, and conflict. Together, our speakers will ask: not only what transnationalism is, but what it does.
- 22 Jan — Jasmina Lukić (Vienna): Transnational Turn in Literary Studies
- 29 Jan — Eneken Laanes (Tallinn): Memory and Environment
This seminar series is jointly organised by Natalya Bekhta (Tampere), Stanisław Krawczyk (Wrocław), Jana-Katharina Mende (Halle), Denys Shatalov (Kryvyi Rih/Berlin) and Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg) within the framework of the research network “Young Network TransEurope ” based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Contact: Natalya Bekhta