Between History and Personal Narrative: East-European Women’s Stories
of Migration in the New Millennium
21-22 September, 2012
University of Bucharest
American Studies Center
Str Pitar Mos 7-13, Room 4
This conference is organized as part of the project Women’s Narratives of Transnational
Relocation (PN-II-RU-TE-2011-3-0159).
Conference Program
Friday, September 21, 2012
9:30-10:00 Registration and Coffee
10:00-10:15 Welcome and Short Description of the Project
10:15-11:30 Keynote Lecture 1:
Jasmina Lukic (Central European University, Budapest), “Migrant Women’s Literature in
Transnational Perspective”
11:30-13:30 Session 1: Migration, Gender Roles and Stories of Success and Failure
Chair: Jasmina Lukic
Simona Fojtová (Transylvania University in Lexington), “East-European Women’s Stories of
Agency in Sex Work Migration”
Mădălina Nicolaescu (University of Bucharest), “Romanian Women’s Success Stories of
Migration”
Francesca Alice Vianello (University of Padua), “Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian
Transnational Families through Women’s Eyes”
Bernadetta Siara (City University London), “Between ‘Escape’ and New Opportunities:
Migration Narratives of Polish Women in the UK”
13:30-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:30 Session 2: Transnationalism and Diversity in Women’s Migration
Chair: Mădălina Nicolaescu
Milica Antić Gaber (University of Ljubljana), “On Their way to the ‘Room of Their Own’:
Women Making and Shaping Their Own Destiny”
Cristina Bezzi (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, Rovereto), “Not Only ‘Caregivers’”
Elena Stoican (University of Bucharest), “Linear Transnationalism in Vesna Goldsworthy
and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction”
Aija Lulle (University of Latvia), “Migrants, Beauties and Eastern Countrywomen: Gendered
Constructions of Latvians in Guernsey”
16:30-17:00 Coffee Break
17:00-19:00 Session 3: Between Fiction and Memoir in Women’s Relocation Narratives
Chair: Dana Mihăilescu
Priscilla Morris (University of East Anglia), “The Painter of Bridges: A Sarajevo Story.
Transnational Family History and Women’s Migration Narratives in a Siege-Exile Novel”
Dina Copelman (George Mason University), “Family Fragments, Fragmented Families: The
Intersections of Subjectivities and Histories”
Polina Shvanyukova (University of Bergamo), “From Albania via Switzerland to the United
States: Elvira Dones’s Journey through Personal Memory and Collective History”
Borbala Farago (Central European University), “Migrant Poet(h)ics”
Saturday, September 22, 2012
10:00-10:15 Registration and Coffee
10:15-11:30 Keynote Lecture 2:
Silvia Schultermandl (University of Graz), “Transnational Sensibility in Feminist Theory
and Practice”
11:30-13:30 Session 4: Creative Dislocations in Women’s Migration Narratives
Chair: Silvia Schultermandl
Cristina Chevereşan (The West University of Timişoara), “‘We Are All Foreign Here’:
Stories of Re/Dis-Location in Ioana Baetica Morpurgo’s Imigranţii”
Dana Mihăilescu (University of Bucharest), “Being Off-Track: Returns to Postcommunist
Eastern Europe and Transits around the U.S. as Fertile Acts of Dislocation in Svetlana
Boym’s Works”
Mihaela Precup (University of Bucharest), “Felines and Females on the Fringe: Femininity
and Dislocation in Nina Bunjevac’s Heartless”
Věra Eliášová (Masaryk University, Brno), “Pages Torn Off: Narratives of Urban Mobility
by Contemporary East and Central European Women Writers”
13:30-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:30 Session 5: Conflict, War Stories and Transnational Mobility in Women’s
Migration
Chair: Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
Andra-Dina Pană (independent researcher), “Mediated Transnationalism. Cases of Women’s
Involvement in Transnationalism”
Zorica Mrsevic (Institute of Social Science, Belgrade), “War Experiences of Women/ Oral
Histories”
Aleksandra Batuchina Rožnova (Klaipeda University), “The Link between the Social State of
the Sending Society and Women’s Migration in Lithuania”
Alissa Tolstokorova (International School of Equal Opportunities, Kyiv), “One Way Ticket?
International Labour Mobility of Ukrainian Women”
16:00-16:30 Coffee Break
17:00-19:00 Session 6: Relocation as Reinvention of the Self
Chair: Mihaela Precup
Diana Benea (University of Bucharest), “‘People move there so light and shameless that they
almost touch the sky’: Walking in the City in Herta Müller’s Traveling on One Leg”
Monica Manolachi (University of Bucharest), “Cultural Tractors and Gender Roles in Marina
Lewycka’s Debut Novel”
Catalina Botez (University of Constance), “Transformative East-West Journeys: Mapping the
Transnational in Domnica Radulescu’s Train to Trieste”
Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru (University of Bucharest), “Nomadic Identity Narratives and
Female Bonding in Domnica Radulescu’s Black Sea Twilight”
19:15 Conference Dinner (Lente & Cafea, Str. Gen. Praporgescu no 31, Bucharest)