Albena Lutzkanova-Vassileva
Associate Professor
English
Location: 4215 Boylan Hall
Phone: 718.951.5000 x3658
Fax: 718.951.4612
Email:
Albena Lutzkanova-Vassileva is an associate professor of English and comparative literature. Her major areas of interest include 20th-century English and East European literatures, Romanticism, critical theory and philosophy, semiotics and culture. Albena's latest publication is her book, The Testimonies of Russian and American Postmodern Poetry: Reference, Trauma, and History (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). In it, she challenges the belief that postmodern literature and deconstructive writing have cut off literary discourse from reality, and reads the often incoherent production of postmodern poets as testimony to a traumatic post-totalitarian (ideological) or post-industrial (technological) reality.
Education:
Ph.D., Emory University - 1999 (Literature, Comparative)
Areas of Expertise:
Postmodern American literature, English and continental romanticisms, 20th-century East European literature, literary theory, cultural studies.
Books and Publications
The Testimonies of Russian and American Postmodern Poetry, book exhibit at the Why the Humanities Conference: Answers from Cognitive and Neuro-Sciences. Kent State University, Kent, OH, July 9-12, 2016. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2015
The Testimonies of Russian and American Postmodern Poetry: Reference, Trauma, and History (New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015)
(Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2015
"Trauma, Reference, and Media Technology in Postmodern American Poetry: The Testimonies of Language Writing." PsyArt: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. Nov. 1. PsyArt is an online, peer-reviewed journal featuring articles using a psychological approach to the arts and specializing in psychoanalytic psychology and literature or film. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2010
"Spoken Revolutions: Discursive Resistance in Bulgarian Late Communist Culture." Poetics Today 30:1, Spring, 2009. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2009
"Toward a Meta Understanding of Reality: The Problem of Reference in Russian Metarealist Poetry." Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature 30.2. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2006
"Reference, History and Memory in Russian Conceptualist Poetry." Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures 59.1, Spring, 2005. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2005
"They Will Die Last Night / We Have Lived Tomorrow: Traumatic Displacements of the Avant-garde in Bob Perelman's The Future of Memory." Studies in the Humanities 31.1: 1-24. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2004
"Trauma, Media Technology and Psychic Restoration in the Contemporary British Novel: The Testimonies of J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition." College Language Association Journal XLV. 3: 388-404. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2002
"Testimonial Poetry in East European Post-Totalitarian Literature." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, March. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2001
"Rethinking the Canon. Ulysses: Modernist? Postmodernist? Minor?" Journal X: A Journal in Culture & Criticism, Spring, 1999. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 1999
Bakhtin, Stalin, and Modern Russian Fiction: Carnival, Dialogism, and History, by M. Keith Booker and Dubravka Juraga. World Literature Today, Spring, 1996. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 1996
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Cultural Memory and Trauma: Embodying the History of Post-Communism." Nostalgia and Memory panel. 54th Annual Comparative Literature Conference, Cultural Memory and Trauma: Literary and Visual Representations. California State University, Long Beach, CA, April 24-25, 2019. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2019
"Traumatic Breaks and Temporal Displacements in East European Post-Communist Literature."
Time and Trauma in Twentieth-Century Literature panel, 48th NeMLA Annual Convention. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, March 23 - 26, 2017.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2017
"Recording the Impacts of Digital Technology: The Testimonies of Language Poetry." Contemporary Literature as Digital Literature panel, 47th Annual Convention of NeMLA. University of Connecticut, Hartford, CT, March 17 - March 20, 2016. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2016
"Post-Soviet Identity in Russian Postmodernism: The Traumas of Post-Socialist Culture,"
accepted as part of the panel "Post-Soviet Socialist Cultures and Identities." 46th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association. Toronto, Ontario; April 30-May 3, 2015.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2015
"Testimonial Paradigms in Late Twentieth Century Poetry," accepted for presentation at the 12th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities. Honolulu, Hawaii, January 10-13, 2014. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2014
"Traumatic Memories, History, and Literary Representation," part of the Harvard-organized
panel "Trauma, Memory & Narrative." 64th Annual RMMLA Convention. Albuquerque, N.M., Oct. 14-16, 2010. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2010
"Reference Beyond Cognition, Language Before Thought: The 'Meaning' of Postmodernism's Nonsemantic Poetry." 107th Annual Conference of the PAMLA. San Francisco State University. Nov. 6, 2009. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009
"Discursive Resistance in Bulgarian Late Communist Culture." Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries Penn Humanities Forum. University of Pennsylvania. April 6-7, 2006. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006
"How to Make Sense: The Challenges of Teaching Postmodern Poetry." Teaching and Research Seminar. Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities. Brooklyn College. April 21, 2005. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2005
"After the Future: Poetic Testimonies to the Translocation of the Avant-garde in the Reality of Consumer Society." Poetry and Poetics panel, Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Reed College. Portland, OR, Nov. 5-7, 2004. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2004
"Overtaking the Future: Eschatological Ruptures and Psychic Disfigurement in Russian Late Avant-Garde Poetry." The Sixth International Literature and Humanities Conference: Modern and Postmodern Artistic Avant-Gardes. Eastern Mediterranean University. Famagusta, North Cyprus, June 4-6, 2003. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003
"Poets of the American Post-Avant-Garde: An Inquiry Into the Works of Bob Perelman." Works-in-Progress Seminar. Brooklyn College. September, 2003. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003
"They Will Die Last Night / We Have Lived Tomorrow?: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Bob Perelman's The Future of Memory." The American Literature Association Symposium: 20th-Century American Poetry: Developments and Definitions. Long Beach, CA, March 13-15, 2003. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003
"Toward a Meta-Understanding of Reality: The Problem of Reference in Russian Metarealist Poetry." Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. New York, Dec. 27-30, 2002. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2002
"Discourse Networks: Friedrich Kittler on the Inscription Systems of 1800/1900." The Wolfe Institute, Brooklyn College. November, 2001. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2001
"Reference, Trauma and History in American Postmodern Poetry: The Testimonies of Language Writing." Rethinking Center and Margin in American Poetry panel, Twentieth-Century Literature Conference. University of Louisville. Louisville, KY, Feb. 22-24, 2001. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2001
"Memory and History in Late Twentieth-Century Experimental Writing: The Case of American Poetry." Poetry and Poetics: Poetic Experimentation, Canonical Reconsiderations panel, PAMLA Conference. UCLA. Nov. 10-12, 2000. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000
"Reclaiming Reference in Testimonial Writing: A Study of American Late Avant-garde Poetry." CUNY Junior Faculty Colloquium of the CUNY Academy for the Sciences and Humanities. CUNY Graduate Center. New York, Nov. 27, 2000. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000
"Trauma, Media Technology and Psychic Restoration in the Contemporary British Novel: The Testimonies of J. G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition." Twentieth-Century English Literature: Trauma as Narrative in the Modern British Novel panel, Central New York Conference on Languages and Literatures. SUNY at Cortland. Oct. 28-31, 2000. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000
Presentation on the Poetry and Theoretic Writings of Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman and Susan Howe. Works-in-Progress Seminar. Brooklyn College. Oct. 11, 2000. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000
"Catastrophe and the Limits of Representation." Violence and Representation Conference. Emory University. Atlanta, Feb. 20, 1998. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998
"Literature of Survival: Constructing a Life After the Future." Literature and Psychology: Trauma as Collective Cultural Phenomenon panel, 55th Annual Meeting of the South Central Modern Language Association. New Orleans, LA, Nov. 14, 1998. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998
"Post-totalitarian Traumas, Post-modernist Testimonies: History, Reference and Memory in Post-1990 Bulgarian Poetry." Echoes of the Past in Post-1990 Bulgarian Culture panel, 30th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Boca Raton, FL, Sept. 24, 1998. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998
"Referentiality in Postmodern Writing: The Poetry of Russian Conceptualism." University of Chicago SLAVIC FORUM, A Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Literatures. Chicago, April 18, 1998. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998
