My Roma Neighbor: Roma Identity and the Construction of the Self in Ukrainian Literature

This talk was based on a paper that examines the portrayal of Roma in the works of T. Shevchenko, M. Starytskyi, and O. Kobylanska, situating it within the broader context of the construction of social, national, and gender identity in Ukrainian literature. It argues that Roma figures serve as a matrix of representation of the exoticized 'Other' on one hand, and a close neighbor on the other. The Ukrainian-Romani meeting is considered a significant element in developing national consciousness, the interaction with the nomadic, orientalized cultural community and the challenge of modernity.   

 

 

Prof. Tamara Hundorova is currently a Visiting Professor and Scholar at Princeton University.  She is Associate Fellow at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Dean at Ukrainian Free University, and  Principal Scholar at Institute of Literature, NAS of Ukraine.  She is a member of PEN Ukraine.

 

Prof. Hundorova is the author of Lesia Ukrainka. Knyhy Syvilly (2023), The Post-Chornobyl Library. The Ukrainian Postmodernism of the 1990s (2019), Tranzytna kul’tura. Symptomy postkolonial’noi travmy (2013), Kitsch i Literatura. Travestii (2008), Franko i/ne Kameniar (2006); Femina melancholica. Stat' i kul'tura v gendernij utopii Ol'hy Kobylians'koi (2002) and other books as well as many articles and chapters on modernism, postmodernism, feminism, postcolonial studies, and history of Ukrainian literature.

 

She taught at Harvard University, University of Toronto, Greifswald University, Kyiv-Mohyla and Kyiv National Universities. Prof. Hundorova is a former Fulbright Scholar, Visiting scholar of Monash university, and a recipient of Yacyk Distinguished Fellowship,  Foreign visitors fellowship (Hokkaido University), and Fellowship of Philipp Schwartz-Initiative of Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.