Join us for our third workshop this semester, on March 9.*

Natalie Cornett
Ph.D. candidate in Modern European History
Brandeis University

“TV-PiS: The Right Wing Takeover of Polish Media
from a Feminist Perspective”

Natalie Cornett is a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University, in modern European history. Her work focuses on women’s groups in 19th-century Europe and the provisional title of her dissertation is “The Politics of Love: Narcyza Żmichowska and the Enthusiasts of Nineteenth-Century Poland.” After intensive study of the Polish language in 2005, she got her B.A. in history at the University of Toronto, a master’s in cultural studies at Jagiellonian University 
in Krakow, Poland, and began her Ph.D. studies at Brandeis in 2014. She has presented talks at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) conference and last year’s Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, as well as being a panelist at the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, and co-organizing and being at panelist at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute’s seminar “Women as Agents of Change? Fresh Perspectives on Gender and Religion.” Her research and teaching interests include nationalism, social power dynamics and the history of women and sexuality. Living in Warsaw, Poland, while completing the research for her dissertation, has prompted her to examine her topic for today’s talk.

*It is ESSENTIAL that you RSVP to Sonia Jaffe Robbins <sjr1991@gmail.com> so that we can leave your name with security at the front desk.
We meet at the Center for European & Mediterranean Studies, NYU, 53 Washington Square South, 3rd floor, 4:30-6 p.m. After the workshop, we usually continue the discussion over an informal dinner, and all are welcome.

Join us for the second workshop this semester on February 16.*

Catalina Florina Florescu, Ph.D.
Department of English
Pace University

“Back to Shame: A Talk About Reproduction,
Violated Rights, and the ‘Traditional Family’ ”

Catalina Florina Florescu earned a bachelor’s degree in Romanian Literature with a minor in American Literature from the University of Bucharest and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Purdue University, specializing in Comparative Theatre & Medical Humanities. She teaches literature, cultural studies, cinema, and writing at Pace University in Manhattan. Her books include Transacting Sites of the Liminal Bodily Spaces (literary criticism in a medical context); Disjointed Perspectives on Motherhood (concerning mothers in literature and motion picture); Inventing Me/Exercitii de retrait, a memoir; and Transnational Narratives in Englishes of Exile. Her first book of poetry is The Night I Burned My Origami Skin, published last year. She has also written three plays, Mia, a drama, which had a reading at the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York City; The After-Tastes of Life, a farce; and a political parable, Suicidal Dog and Laika. The  plays will be published in  Romanian this year and the English version, by PalmArtPress, in Berlin. And she is currently working on a volume of short stories titled Not Yet.

*It is ESSENTIAL that you RSVP to Nanette Funk <nanettefunk1@gmail.com> or Sonia Jaffe Robbins <sjr1991@gmail.com> so that we can leave your name with security at the front desk.
We meet at the Center for European & Mediterranean Studies, NYU, 53 Washington Square South, 3rd floor, 4:30-6 p.m. After the workshop, we usually continue the discussion over an informal dinner, and all are welcome.