Conference opening | 09:00-9:30

Sala de Graus

  • Oscar Jané Checa (Vice-Rector for International Relations)
  • Margarita Freixas Alàs (Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities)
  • Elisabet Pladevall (Head of English Department)
  • Cristina Pividori (Coordinator of the MA in English Studies)

Slot 1 | 09:30-11:00

Sala de Graus

Panel 1:  Borderlines of the Self: Gender, Trauma, and Resistant Identities

CHAIR: Dr Kedon K. Willis (City College of New York-CCNY)

  • 09:30-09:45:  Marie Höfler (University of Bamberg) “My goal isn’t to look fuckable. The look I want is Don’t fuck with me.” Female Embodiment in Contemporary Women’s Fiction
  • 09:45-10:00: Artiola Kajtazi (University of Graz) “Misinterpreting Home(land): Gender, Identity, and Migration in Contemporary Albanian-American Women’s Writing”
  • 10:00-10:15: Ana Andricic (University of Graz) “Stripped of Spectacle: Reclaiming Representation and Practising Care Through Collaborative Video Production in the Work of the Women’s AIDS Video Enterprise (WAVE)”
  • 10:15-10:30: Wisal Lamsaougar (Université Paris Cité) “Inherited Wounds: “Indian Girls can be Forgotten so well they forget themselves” — Memoirs of Trauma, Survival and Resilience among Indigenous Women”
  • 10:30-10:45: Ghita Lamzaouek (Université Paris Cité) “Maryam is a dyke”: The Intersectionality of Islamophobic Trauma in the West and Queer Muslim Women’s Sexuality in Contemporary Anglophone Literature”
  • 10:45-11:00 Discussion

Sala de Juntes

Panel 2: English, Elsewhere: Mobility, Contact and Linguistic Change

CHAIR: Dr Elisabet Pladevall (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB)

  • 09:30-09:45: Hilde Olschewski (University of Bamberg) “Verb Complementation Patterns in Postcolonial Englishes: A Comparative Study”
  • 09:45-10:00: Lisa Marie Ortlieb (University of Bamberg) “English in Denmark: Language Attitudes of Young Danes and Domains of Usage”
  • 10:00-10:15:  Iulia Boboc (Université Paris Cité) “Understanding Modern Emerging Adult Identity Formation through Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation.”
  • 10:15-10:45:  Extended discussion

Coffee Break | 11:00-11:30

Slot 2 | 11:30-13:00

Sala de Graus

Panel 3: Where Text Meets Image: Intermedial Encounters

CHAIR: Dr. Virginia Pignagnoli (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB)

  • 11:30-11:45:  Michela Alfonsi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “The Invisible Line between Theatre, Literature and Illustration”
  • 11:45-12:00: Annemarie Eijlders (Université Paris Cité) “Cultural Encounters across Time and Space: The Use of Archaeology in the Art of Mary Beth Edelson”
  • 12:00-12:15: Hunny Kyle Laurente (Université Paris Cité) “Illustrated Colonial Writings in the Philippines during American Colonialism and the Influence of Visual Anthropology”
  • 12:15-12:30: Léna Sebbar-Imbert (ENS Paris-Saclay / Université Paris Cité) “The Writing on the Wall: On Graffiti and Collages as a Textual Reframing of Public Space”
  • 12:30-13:00: Extended discussion

Sala de Juntes

Panel 4: Speech at the Breaking Point: Witness, and Mediation

CHAIR: Dr. David Owen (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB)

  • 11:30-11:45: Andrea Edoardo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “The Literary Confession: An Inquiry into the Novel across Europe and America”
  • 11:45-12:00: (ONLINE) Abhigna Shreedhar (University of Münster) “Time as Transfer: Ethical Witnessing in Shibli’s Minor Detail”
  • 12:00-12:15: Louisa Da Costa Gravelos (Université Paris Cité) “The Voice of the Other: Autothanatography and Relational Intersubjectivity in Patti Smith’s Just Kids”
  • 12:15-12:30: Lehna Mahdjoub (Université Paris Cité) “When Language Fails Us: Trauma and the Breakdown of Interaction in A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing”
  • 12:30-12:45: Fatima Essamadi (UAB) “Mediated Encounters with Palestinian Suffering: Linguistic and Narrative Strategies in Western Media Discourse”
  • 12:45-13:00: Discussion

13:00-14:00: Lunch Break

14:00-15:00: PLENARY LECTURE 1: “Time Is (Not)On My Side: Time and Temporality as a Cultural, Political, and Social Challenge”
Prof. Roberta Maierhofer (University of Graz)
Chair: Dr Jennifer Schumm Fauster (University of Graz)

  • Slot 3 | 15:00-16:30

Sala de Graus

Panel 5: Cartographies of Perception: Space, Form, and Worldmaking

CHAIR: Dr Nicholas Spengler (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB)

  • 15:00-15:15:  Rhyan Blade (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “Naming the Ice: Linguistic Authority and Environmental Perception in The Left Hand of Darkness”
  • 15:15-15:30:  Simon Ipeau Maynadié (Université Paris Cité) “Reinventing the Wheel: Authorship(s), Mythological Construction and Transmedia Storyworld in The Wheel of Time”
  • 15:30-15:45: (ONLINE) Bilge Güral (Université Paris Cité) “Shifting Perceptions: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Aesthetics in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and The Waves”
  • 15:45-16:15:  Extended discussion

Sala de Juntes

Panel 6:  Language Under Pressure: Control, Care, Crisis, and AI

CHAIR: Dr Juli Cebrián (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB)

  • 15:00-15:15: Nino Lagane Strooband (Université Paris Cité) “The truth is that she is my spy, as I am hers”: The Control of Language and Social Bonds in Margaret Atwood’s Dystopias The Handmaid’s Tale and The Heart Goes Last”
  • 15:15-15:30: Sergei Nazaraliev (University of Münster) “Metonymies and Metaphors of Blame and Responsibility in HBO’s Chernobyl”
  • 15:30-15:45: (ONLINE) Artem Saloev (Université Paris Cité) “Human–AI Encounters: Customization in NotebookLM Podcasts”
  • 15:45-16:15: Extended discussion

Coffee Break | 16:30-17:00

POSTER SESSION: SIDEWAYS ENCOUNTERS

Literature Posters

  • Atiyana Ringling (City College of New York-CCNY): “Ursula K. Le Guin’s Inner Lands: Bridging Worlds in The Left Hand of Darkness”
  • Doga Kaya (UAB): “Testing Austen’s Deceptive Men: The Watsons as a Blueprint for Male Self-Interest”
  • Jelena Nesterjuk (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice): “A Tyrant or a Victim? Richard III’s Unresolved Mystery in History and Fiction”
  • Eileen Weinert (UAB): “Under the Big Top: Circus Encounters in Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus”

Language Posters

  • Ying Wang (University of Bamberg): “Incongruity Theory and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Chinese American Stand-Up Comedy”
  • Jovana Krstevska (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “Lost in Translation? Cultural Proximity and Emotional Idioms in Italian, English, and Macedonian”
  • Josh Schraen (Université Paris Cité) “A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis of Infinitive Questions in English”
  • Slot 4 | 17:00-18:30

Sala de Graus

Panel 7: Canon in Counterpoint: Queer, Postcolonial, and Revisionary Readings

CHAIR: Dr. Elisa Bordin (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • 17:00-17:15: Iuri DiBlasio (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “Jack the Modernist or How to Orient the Novel Queerly”
  • 17:15-17:30: Gianluca Sabaddin (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “Retrieving Agency at Textual Level: Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Introduction’ to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe“
  • 17:30-17:45: Zofia Betlej (Jagiellonian University in Cracow) “Milk, Gall, and Meat: Hegemonic Masculinity Sterilised in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Sarah Kane’s Blasted”
  • 17:45-18:00: Amy Boliter (UAB) “Against the Trafficking of Trauma: Publishing and Performance in Koleka Putuma’s Poetry”
  • 18:00-18:30: Extended discussion

Sala de Juntes

Panel 8: Gods, Power, and Moral Worlds

CHAIR: Dr Anna Paluchowska-Messing (Jagiellonian University)

  • 17:00-17:15:  (ONLINE) Aleksandr Slepov (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, online) “Between Divine and Political Authority: Claims to Absolute Power in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible”
  • 17:15-17:30: Alessandro Vargiu (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) “Narrating Disgust: Two Examples from the Anglo-American Landscape”
  • 17:30-17:45: (ONLINE) Anna Konopka (Jagiellonian University) “Magic, Morality, and Power: Religious Reactions to Harry Potter in the English-Speaking World and Poland”
  • 17:45-18:00: Paulina Goraj (Jagiellonian University) “Encountering the Divine: Love and Hatred Towards God”
  • 18:00-18:30: Extended discussion

18:30-19:30: PLENARY LECTURE 2: “Examining the Examiners, or A Brief Inquiry in Three Volumes into Academic Disciplines in 2026”
Prof. Andrew Monnickendam (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Chair: Dr Cristina Pividori (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

19:30-19:45: Conference Closing