Narratives of Womanhood in the Modernisms of Central and Eastern Europe (1870-1970)
Organizing committee: Naïma Berkane, Mateusz Chmurski, Cécile Rousselet et Clara Royer
Date : June 3–5, 2026
Location: Paris, Filmothèque du Quartier Latin, 9 rue Champollion, salle bleue; Centre d’Études slaves, 9 rue Michelet;
Language : English, French
Access the official poster
& to the CfP.
Program
Wednesday, June 3
19:45 – Projection de Panelstory de Věra Chytilová à la Filmothèque du Quartier Latin (9 rue Champollion, 75005 Paris), salle bleue. Sous-titres français.
Thursday, June 4: Centre d’Études slaves, 9 rue Michelet
8:30-9:00 Welcome & introductory remarks
9:00-10:30 Keynote lecture – Nebojša JOVANOVIĆ (Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo)
From Bride to Girl: Changing Girlhood in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
Moderation : Jelena Petrović (Chercheuse et commissaire d’exposition indépendante, Vienne / Belgrade)
10:30-10:45 Coffee break
10:45-13:00 Panel 1 – Poétiques
Moderation : Jelena Petrović (Chercheuse et commissaire d’exposition indépendante, Vienne/Belgrade)
Malwina Tkacz (University of Trnava)
Embodied Crisis and the Feminine in Poświatowska’s Poetry
Anna Borgos (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology in Budapest)
Poetics, Politics, and Gender. Sarolta Lányi’s Ars Poeticas in Prewar Hungary
Alla Shvets (Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv)
Constructing the Feminine in Nataliia Kobrynska’s Psychograms: Genre and Narrative Innovations
Isidora Belić (Université Novi Sad)
Femininity as a Narrative Mechanism: Milena Pavlović Barili’s Interplay of Painting, Fashion, and Poetry
13:00-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Panel 2 – Personnages
Moderation : Clara Royer (Sorbonne Université)
Martin Makara (Slovak Academy of Sciences)
From Antifascist Uprising in the Mountains to the Crime in Socialist Metropolis: the Journey of Katarína Lazarová’s Female Characters
Jovana Ivetić (Institute for Literature and Art in Belgrade)
Fragmenting of the heroine through narrative perspective in prose of Milica Janković
Naïma Berkane (Sorbonne Université)
The Yugoslav Novi Film in Search of Its Anti-Narrative Powers: Alliance with the Feminine Against the Masculine
15:45-16:00 Coffee break
16:00-17:45 Panel 3 – Figurations
Moderation : Pascale Samuel (mahJ)
Rosina Neginsky (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Lyubov Momot : entre pouvoir et impuissance, une esthétique de la résistance
Marcelina Mroz (Sorbonne Université)
Chana Kowalska : art, genre et histoire
Emilija Ljutic (University of Belgrade)
Autoportraits féminins en peinture à la lumière de la narratologie féministe
Friday, June 5: Centre d’Études slaves, 9 rue Michelet
9:00-10:45 Panel 4 – Intimes
Moderation : Mateusz Chmurski (Sorbonne Université / CEFRES)
Anna Dżabagina (SWPS University in Warsaw)
Narrating Lesbian Life and Negotiating Lesbian Visibility in Polish Modernist Women’s Writings
Cristina Modreanu (University of the Arts in Târgu-Mureș)
Memory as Counter-History: Women’s Writing in Interwar Romania and the Reconfiguring of the Sensible
Katja Kobolt (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies in Ljubljana)
The Third Space of Socialist Motherhood
10:45-11:00 Pause café
11:00-12:45 Panel 5 – Écrivaines
Moderation : Lola Sinoimeri (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis)
Zorana Simić (Institute for Literature and Art in Belgrade)
Selena Dukić and the (narrative) Feminization of Modernism and Avant-Garde
Julija Ovsec (Charles University in Prague)
Victim of A New Life: Questions of Femininity and Womanhood
Lena Magnone (Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna)
Stories about Nothing? The feminine in Povídky o ničem by Edvard Klas
12:45-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:45 Panel 6 – Écrivains
Moderation : Jean-François Laplénie (Sorbonne Université)
Slaven Crnić (University of Rijeka)
A Museum of the Liberated Woman”: Femininity, Social Transformation, and Modernity in Interwar Yugoslav Travelogues on the USSR
Matea Magdić (University of Zagreb)
Ana Katarina Zrinska as a Modernist Political Subject
Guilhem Pousson (Sorbonne Université)
From Feminine Communication to Veridiction: The Disappearance of Love as an Enunciative Scene in Tolstoy
15:45-16:00 Coffee break
16:00-17:15 Panel 7 – Performances
Moderation : Patrick Farges (Université Paris Cité)
Natalija Jakubova (Institute for Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
Irena Solska: Performative Questioning of the Modernist Womanhood Narratives
Žarka Svirčev (Institute for Literature and Arts in Belgrade)
The Bodies in Motion: Pleasures and its Limitations
17:20-17:30 – Jelena Petrović (Chercheuse et commissaire d’exposition indépendante, Vienne/Belgrade)
Closing remarks