Ceeres of Voices: Dubravka Ugresic - "American Fictionary" & "Fox" - Nada Petković

When	October 01, 2018 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Where	Other Location
Contact Information	Seminary Co-op Bookstore
Description	Dubravka Ugresic discusses "American Fictionary" and "Fox." She will be joined in conversation by Nada Petković. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. Presented in partnership with the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies At 57th Street Books About "American Fictionary": In the midst of the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, Dubravka Ugresic—winner of the 2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature—was invited to Middletown, Connecticut as a guest lecturer. A world away from the brutal sieges of Sarajevo and the nationalist rhetoric of Milošević, she instead has to cope with everyday life in America, where she's assaulted by "strong personalities," the cult of the body, endless amounts of jogging and exercise, bagels, and an obsession with public confession. Organized as a fictional dictionary, these early essays of Ugresic's (revised and amended for this edition) allow us to see American culture through the eyes of a woman whose country is being destroyed by war, and forces us to see through the comforting veil of Western consumerism. About "Fox": "Fox" is the story of literary footnotes and “minor” characters―unnoticed people propelled into timelessness through the biographies and novels of others. With Ugresic’s characteristic wit, "Fox" takes us from Russia to Japan, through Balkan minefields and American road trips, and from the 1920s to the present, as it explores the power of storytelling and literary invention, betrayal, and the randomness of human lives. About the author: Over the past three decades, Dubravka Ugresic has established herself as one of Europe’s most distinctive novelists and essayists. From her early postmodernist excursions, to her elegiac reckonings in fiction and the essay with the disintegration of her Yugoslav homeland and the fall of the Berlin Wall, through to her more recent writings on popular and literary culture, Ugresic’s work is marked by a rare combination of irony, polemic, and compassion. Following degrees in Comparative and Russian Literature, Ugresic worked for many years at the University of Zagreb’s Institute for Theory of Literature, successfully pursuing parallel careers as both a writer and as a scholar. In 1991, when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugresic took a firm anti-war stance, critically dissecting retrograde Croatian and Serbian nationalism, the stupidity and criminality of war, and in the process became a target for nationalist journalists, politicians and fellow writers. Subjected to prolonged public ostracism and persistent media harassment, she left Croatia in 1993. About the series: CEERES, pronounced /ˈsirēz/, is the acronym for the University of Chicago Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies. Together with the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, we are delighted to announce the launch of the CEERES of Voices Event Series.
Categories	Conferences/Lectures, Discussions, Lectures, Readings, Special Events, Publication Events, Arts, Non-University Events, Staff, Graduate Students

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