With Chiara Viceconti, Université Sapienza de Rome ; Sybil Raysz, Modernitas-ULB

The lecture stems from the meeting of two PhD projects interested in Russian-language Soviet Writer Valentina Zhuravlyova. This joint lecture will combine two perspectives on science fiction, one proposed by Chiara Viceconti (Sapienza University of Rome) focussing on women science fiction writers and the place of gender in their texts, the other proposed by Sybil Raysz (ULB) focussing on the role of science fiction in asking questions of the philosophy of science. This crossing of perspectives will allow us to discuss the figure of women scientists through Zhuravlyova's texts.

Chiara Viceconti is a PhD student in Slavic and Germanic studies at Sapienza University. Her research interests, both in the Germanic and Slavic fields, encompass science fiction, the relationship between politics and literature, and gender studies. Her thesis project is about science fiction women authors in East Germany and Soviet Union. An article about GDR women science fiction has been published this year on the Italian academic journal Cultura Tedesca. She cooperates also in another journal, titled Costellazioni, as reviews editor. In her master’s degree in linguistic, literary and translation studies, she enrolled in the Double Degree initiative, jointly offered by Sapienza University and the University of Bielefeld and graduated with a master’s thesis in German titled Völkisch and national socialist ideologies in German science fiction of the XX century between utopia und dystopia.

Sybil Raysz is a PhD student in Slavic studies at ULB. Since 2022, she is working on a thesis project about Czech and Russian science fiction literature from 1877 to 1972 as a mode of cognition on scientific thought and modernity. The interdisciplinary thesis brings together aspects of literature and the philosophy of science within a study of their interactions with Slavic contexts starting from the modern period. The project approaches SF, a multi-facetted genre, as a tool able to provoke a reflection in its readers upon the nature of science as a context-bound notion, giving them agency on the ways in which conceptions of science shape modern societies. Sybil Raysz previously obtained a master’s degree in physics (2017-2019) followed by a master’s degree in Slavic letters and language, specializing in Russian (2019-2022) and later Czech (2021-2022).

Thursday May 16th, from 5:30pm to 6:30pm

Salle de réception
Building DE1 - Level 3 - Room R.3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1000 Bruxelles

Free entrance

Contact : Sybil Raysz