People

Professor Sanja Bahun

Executive Dean (Arts and Humanities) - Professor (R)
Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies (LiFTS)
Professor Sanja Bahun

Profile

Biography

Sanja Bahun's area of expertise is international modernism, and her research interests include theory of comparative arts, world literature, psychoanalysis, and women's and gender studies. She is the author of Modernism and Melancholia: Writing as Countermourning (2014), the co-editor of The Avant-garde and the Margin: New Territories of Modernism (2006), Violence and Gender in the Globalized World: The Intimate and the Extimate (2008, 2015), From Word to Canvas: Appropriations of Myth in Women's Aesthetic Production (2009), Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text: New Cassandras (2011), Language, Ideology, and the Human: New Interventions (2012), Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious (2013), Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989: Re-Visions(2014), and Thinking Home: Interdisciplinary Dialogues (2018, second edition 2020), and she has published articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects concerning modernism, world literature, psychoanalytic theory and intellectual history. She has also authored two books of creative writing: On the Atomic Bomb, Pain, Spaghetti, and All the Rest... (1994) and To Icarus, with Love (1998).

Qualifications

  • BA Belgrade

  • MA Rutgers

  • PhD Rutgers

Appointments

University of Essex

  • Dear PGRE, University of Essex (1/10/2018 - 31/12/2022)

Other academic

  • Professor, University of Essex (1/10/2014 - present)

Research and professional activities

Research interests

comparative literature

psychoanalysis

womens and gender studies

the arts and transitional justice

Conferences and presentations

Plenary Address: Active Thought and Future Perfect: Reading History and Expression with the Belgrade Surrealist Circle

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, EXC 2020 Anticipating Modernities, EXC 2020 Anticipating Modernities, Berlin, Germany, 7/7/2022

Key Note Address: Cassandras Anew: Women’s Writing and Strategies of Resistance

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Regina Ezera and Eastern European Literature, Riga, Latvia, Riga, Latvia, 3/12/2021

Key Note Address: Lyubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, and the Female Artist as Producer of Reality

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Modernism: Making, Place & Protest, London, United Kingdom, 3/11/2018

“The Fabric of Home: Household Cloth between Ontology and Use-Value in Paul Klee and Varvara Stepanova”

Invited presentation, Modernist Objects: French Society for Modernist Studies Conference, Paris, France, 14/6/2018

Home, Modernists, and Inter-imperiality

Invited presentation, invited lecture, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 21/2/2018

Distinguished Lecture: Modernism and Home inter imperia: Constantine Cavafy and the Yugoslav Surrealists

Invited presentation, distinguished lecture, Evanston, United States, 12/1/2018

Key Note Address: The Economy of Discomfort: Mina Loy, the Homeless Body, and the Issues of Aesthetic Reception

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, Aggression, Transgression, and the Avant-garde International Conference, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 6/7/2017

Key Note Address: Literature, Justice, Transition

Invited presentation, Keynote presentation, The European Conference on Literature and Librarianship,, Brighton, United Kingdom, 12/7/2016

Teaching and supervision

Previous supervision

Brigitte Nicole Grice
Brigitte Nicole Grice
Thesis title: International Surrealism and the Contemporary Epoch: A Surrealist Document with Questions, Principles and Memory Maps
Degree subject: Film Studies (Creative Practice)
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 1/6/2023
Annecy Chantal Lax
Annecy Chantal Lax
Thesis title: Conscience and Consciousness: British Theatre and Human Rights.
Degree subject: Theatre Studies
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 3/5/2022
Elena Maria Dirstaru
Elena Maria Dirstaru
Thesis title: Voices, Bodies, and Power in the Documentary Interview
Degree subject: Film Studies (Creative Practice)
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 2/3/2020
Stanislava Georgieva Dikova
Stanislava Georgieva Dikova
Thesis title: Autonomy and Agency in Virginia Woolf's Writing
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 10/6/2019
Eirini Apanomeritaki
Eirini Apanomeritaki
Thesis title: Transforming Narratives: Subjectivity and Metamorphosis in Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, Alejo Carpentier, Vassilis Vassilikos, Virginia Woolf, and Marie Darrieussecq
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 11/10/2018
Natalia Ciofu
Natalia Ciofu
Thesis title: Internal Punishment: A Psychoanalytical Reading of F.M. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), L. Rebreanu's Ciuleandra (1927) and P. Ackroyd's Hawksmoor (1985)
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 5/7/2018
Lin Su
Lin Su
Thesis title: Politics of Place in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/3/2018
Tabitha Grace Kan
Tabitha Grace Kan
Thesis title: Renderings of the Abyss: Some Changing Nineteenth-Century Literary Perceptions of the Animal / Human Divide
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 20/4/2017
Abd Alkareem Atteh
Abd Alkareem Atteh
Thesis title: The Sites of Uncertainty: The Politics and Poetics of Place in Short Fiction By James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, and William Faulkner
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 17/11/2015
Anthony Wood
Anthony Wood
Thesis title: Melancholia, Mourning and the Quest for Renewal in the Legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 18/12/2013
Muhramalnessa MA Turkistani
Muhramalnessa MA Turkistani
Thesis title: From Fragmentation to Integration: Schizophrenia, Dreams, and Reintegrative Strategies in Selected Novels By Doris Lessing.
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 3/7/2013
Heidi Louise Wilkins
Heidi Louise Wilkins
Thesis title: Talkies, Road Movies and Chick Flicks: An Analysis of Sound and Gender in American Mainstream Cinema 1930-2012
Degree subject: Film Studies
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 3/7/2013
Sobia Quazi
Sobia Quazi
Thesis title: The Spectral Figure Unbound: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Female Gothic Literature and Film
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 22/10/2012
Vivienne Louise Brough
Vivienne Louise Brough
Thesis title: Affects of Ekstasis in Surrealism's Occluded Practices
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 1/5/2012

Publications

Journal articles (16)

Bahun, S., (2020). Beyond Good and Evil? Popular Songs, Mathemes, and Bus Rides (Art and Transition in the Region of Former Yugoslavia). Media, War, and Conflict. 12 (Special Issue: The Political Aesthetics of Democratization Conflicts,), 70-87

Bahun, S., (2019). Beyond Good and Evil? Popular Songs, Mathemes, and Bus Rides (Art and Transition in the Region of Former Yugoslavia). Media, War and Conflict. 12 (2), 70-87

Bahun, S., (2018). Gaps, Or the Dialectics of Inter-imperial Art: The Case of the Belgrade Surrealist Circle. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies. 64 (3), 458-487

Bahun, S., (2017). The Pleasures of Daldaldal: Freud, Jokes, and the Development of Intersubjective Aesthetics. Modernist Cultures. 12 (2), 249-274

Bahun, S., (2015). On Transience, Presence and Anticipation: Notes Towards a Palimpsestic Approach to Temporal Literary Study, with Reference to 1915: Figure:. Forum for Modern Language Studies. 51 (4), 445-463

Bahun, S., Finburgh, C. and Littau, K., (2014). Guest Editors' Introduction to Comparative Critical Studies (special issue: Migration). Comparative Critical Studies. 11 (2-3), 145-160

Bahun, S., (2011). Croatian Animation, Then and Now: Creating Sparks or Just a Little Bit of Smoke?. Kinocultura

Bahun, S., (2010). There Was Once A Country An impossible chronotope in the writings of Slavenka Drakulić and Dubravka Ugrešić. European Journal of English Studies. 14 (1), 63-74

Bahun, S., (2009). Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution. SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL. 53 (2), 312-314

Bahun, S., (2009). Faces Not Different from Our Own: Alain Resnais?s Night and Fog as Cross-Historical Testimony. The Holocaust in History and Memory. 2, 69-81

Bahun, S., (2008). The Burden of the Past, the Dialectics of the Present: Notes on Virginia Woolf's and Walter Benjamin's Philosophies of History. Modernist Cultures. 3 (2), 100-115

Bahun, S., (2008). Faulkner, Фолкнер, Folkner, Fokner: A Case Study of Slavic-Anglophone Translatability. The Faulkner Journal. 24 (1), 11-27

Bahun, S., (2008). History in Postmodern Theater: Heiner M�ller, Caryl Churchill, and Suzan-Lori Parks. Comparative Literature Studies. 45 (4), 446-470

Bahun, S., (2008). Faulkner, ???????, Folkner, Fokner: ? Case-study of Slavic-Anglophone Translatability. The Faulkner Journal. 24 (1-2), 3-19

Bahun, S., (2007). The Success of Failure: Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy of History. Nasleđe/Наслеђе: Journal of Language, Literature, Arts and Culture/часопис за књижевност, језик, уметност и културу. 4 (7), 31-54

Bahun, S., (2003). The Dialectics of Madame de Staël: (On Corinne, or Italy). Exit 9: The Rutgers Journal of Comparative Literature. 5, 1-15

Books (15)

Petric, B. and Bahun, S., (2018). Thinking Home Interdisciplinary Dialogues. Bloomsbury Publishing. 1350062340. 9781350062344

(2018). Introduction On Violence, Gender, and Global Connections. Routledge. 9781351143363

(2016). Language, Ideology, and the Human. Routledge. 9781409428343

Bahun, S. and Radunovic, D., (2016). Introduction: Introducing, Intervening, and Introspecting. 9781409428343

Rajan, VGJ., (2016). Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text. Routledge. 9781409400011

Bahun, S., (2014). Modernism and Melancholia: Writing as Countermourning. Oxford University Press. 9780199977956

Littau, K., Bahun, S. and Finburgh, C., (2014). Migration (Special Issue of Comparative Critical Studies). Edinburgh University Press

Haynes, AJ. and Bahun, S., (2014). Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989: Re-Visions. Routledge

Burnett, L., Bahun, S. and Main, R., (2013). Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious. Karnac books. 978 1 78220 002 4

Bahun, S. and Radunović, D., (2012). Introduction: Introducing, intervening, and introspecting. 9781409428343

Bahun, S. and Radunović, D., (2012). Introduction: Introducing, intervening, and introspecting. 9781409428343

Bahun, S. and Radunović, D., (2012). Language, ideology, and the human: New interventions. 9781409428343

Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., (2011). Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text. Ashgate. 9781409400011

Rajan, VGJ. and Bahun, S., (2009). From Word to Canvas: Appropriations of Myth in Women?s Aesthetic Production. Cambridge Scholars. 9781443805377

Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., (2008). Violence and Gender in the Globalized World: The Intimate and the Extimate. Ashgate. 9780754673644

Book chapters (26)

Bahun, S., Pan-European Modernism. In: Europe in British Literature and Culture. Editors: Rau, P. and Rossiter, W., . Cambridge University Press

Bahun, S., (2023). 'Part heathen, part Christian’: Recording Transitions and Amalgamations of Belief Systems in Constantine Cavafy’s Poetry. In: Edinburgh Companion to Modernism, Myth, and Religion. Editors: Hobson, S. and Radford, A., . Edinburgh University Press. 457- 476. 9781474494786

Bahun, S., (2021). “Marko Ristić, Surrealist Wall, Belgrade”. In: Surrealism beyond Borders. Editors: d’Alessandro, S. and Gale, M., . The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press. 176- 179. 9781588397270

Bahun, S., (2021). History and Active Thought: The Belgrade Surrealist Circle’s Transforming Praxis. In: Historical Modernisms: Time, History and Modernist Aesthetics. Editors: Spiropoulou, A. and Rabate, J-M., . Bloomsbury. 215- 233. 9781350202962

Bahun, S., (2020). ‘Me you – you – me’: Mina Loy and the the Art of Ethnographic Intimacy. In: Modernist Intimacies. Editors: Högberg, E., . Edinburgh University Press

Bahun, S., (2020). The Fabric of Home: Cotton Cloth between Ontology and Use-Value in Paul Klee’s, Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova’s Artwork. Editors: Cuny, N. and Kalck, X., . Clemson University Press. 97- 112. 978-1-949-97950-3

Bahun, S., (2018). 'Let Us Go, Then, Exploring . . .': Intertextual Conversations on the Meaning of Life. In: Sentencing Orlando: Virginia Woolf and the Morphology of the Modernist Sentence. Editors: Hogberg, E. and Bromley, A., . Edinburgh University Press. 68- 79. 9781474414609

Bahun, S., (2016). Transitional justice and the arts: Reflections on the field. In: Theorizing Transitional Justice. 153- 166. 9781472418296

(2016). Introduction: Cassandra's Gift. In: Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text. Routledge. 15- 30. 9781409400011

Bahun, S., (2015). Transitional justice and the arts: Reflections on the field. In: Theorizing Transitional Justice. Editors: Corradetti, C., Eisikovits, N. and Rotondi, J., . Ashgate. 153- 166. 9781472418296

Bahun, S., (2014). Broken music, broken history: Sounds and silence in Virginia Woolf’s between the acts. In: Virginia Woolf and Music. Indiana University Press. 229- 259. 9780253012555

Bahun, S. and Haynes, J., (2014). Introduction. Questioning and Questing: re-staging state socialist cinema. In: Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989 Re-Visions. Editors: Bahun, S. and Haynes, J., . Routledge. 1- 6. 1317818725. 9780415813235

Bahun, S., (2014). The Human and the Possible: Animation in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, 1960-1980. In: Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989 Re-Visions. Editors: Bahun, S. and Haynes, J., . Routledge. 9780415813235

Bahun, S. and Haynes, J., (2014). Introduction. Questioning and Questing: re-staging state socialist cinema. In: Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989 Re-Visions. Editors: Bahun, S. and Haynes, J., . Routledge. 1- 6. 9780415813235

Bahun, S., (2013). 'Virginia Woolf and Psychoanalytical Theory'. In: Virginia Woolf in Context. Editors: Randall, B. and Goldman, J., . Cambridge University Press. 9781107003613

Bahun, S., (2012). A Conversation with Joško Marušić: Sending a Message to Unknown Friends. In: In Contrast: Croatian Film Today. Hrvatski filmski savez. 129- 135. 9780857458940

Bahun, S., (2012). Croatian Animation, Then and Now: Creating Sparks or Just a Little Bit of Smoke?. In: In Contrast: Croatian Film Today. Hrvatski filmski savez. 76- 88. 9780857458940

Bahun, S., (2012). The Balkans Uncovered: Toward Historie Croisée of Modernism. In: The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms. Oxford University Press. 25- 47. 9780195338904

Bahun, S., (2012). Woolf and Psychoanalytic Theory. In: Virginia Woolf in Context. Cambridge University Press. 92- 109. 9781107003613

(2012). Cross-Gendered Literary Voices. In: Cross-Gendered Literary Voices: Appropriating, Resisting, Embracing. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 57- 73. 9781349335534

Bahun, S., (2012). ''These heavy sands are language tide?': Tidal Voicing and the Poetics of Home in James Joyce?s Ulysses'. In: Cross-Gendered Literary Voices: Appropriating, Resisting, Embracing. Editors: Kim, R. and Westall, C., . Palgrave-Macmillan. 57- 73. 9780230299870

Bahun, S., (2011). 'Cassandra?s Gift'. In: Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text. Editors: Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., . Ashgate. 1- 15. 9781409400011

Bahun, S., (2011). 'The Ethics of Animal-Human Existence: Marie Darrieussecq?s Truismes'. In: Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text. Editors: Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., . Ashgate. 55- 74. 9781409400011

Bahun, S., (2011). 'The Politics of World Literature'. In: The Routledge Companion to World Literature. Editors: D'haen, T., Damrosch, D. and Kadir, D., . Routledge. 373- 382. 9780415570220

Bahun, S., (2009). "The Feminist Gaze: Looking Back and Across the Landscape of Myth". In: From Word to Canvas: Appropriations of Myth in Women?s Aesthetic Production. Editors: Rajan, VGJ. and Bahun, S., . Cambridge Scholars. 1- 7. 9781443805377

Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., (2008). On Violence, Gender, and Global Connections. In: Violence and Gender in the Globalized World: The Intimate and the Extimate. Editors: Bahun, S. and Rajan, VGJ., . Ashgate. 1- 7. 9780754673644

Thesis dissertation (1)

Bahun, S., Modernism and Melancholia: History as Mourning-Work

Other (1)

Bahun, S., (2017).The Arrested Flight of Surreality: The Belgrade Surrealist Circle (Field Report with Invitation). Modernism/Modernity. 2(4 [Online section]),Johns Hopkins University Press

Grants and funding

2017

Home and Modernism

Leverhulme Trust

Home and Modernism

Leverhulme Trust

2010

60% To develop an open-source interactive video browser 60%

Technology STrategy Board

40% To develop an open-source interactive browser

Adventure Pictures Ltd

Contact

sbahun@essex.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1206 872634

Location:

Colchester Campus

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