Catastrophic Literary Imagination: Ukraine 1917-2022

The course offers an overview of the Ukrainian literature in terms of catastrophic thinking and representation of highly traumatic events of the twentieth century, such as war, revolution, Holocaust, Famine, and nuclear disaster. The aim of the course is to examine how trauma influences the literary and cultural imagination and to consider the role of testimony, documentary and afiction in presenting catastrophic events. Among the topics to be discussed are fiction and nonfiction as a means of representing catastrophe, the role of apocalyptic imagination, and transgenerational effects of trauma.