Liberating Embodied Knowledge: The Case of Ukrainian Literature

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable explores experiences and processes of liberation and freedom not as abstract or theoretical phenomena, but as processes of embodied knowledge. What has been our own direct, embodied experience of the war? How has our embodied knowledge of the war changed our understanding of what knowledge is, and what is at stake when we talk about knowledge in academia? How has our embodied knowledge of the war changed and deepened our insights about literature and culture? What types of embodied knowledge do we see articulated in contemporary Ukrainian literature and culture? What types of embodied knowledge specifically relating to freedom and liberation do we see articulated in contemporary Ukrainian literature and culture? How have Ukrainian writers used embodied knowledge to communicate and translate ideas of liberation, and to create liberating communities? What might an idea of a liberatory embodied knowledge add to the theories of postmemory and the intergenerational transmission of trauma in Ukrainian literature? We propose this discussion in roundtable format because our experiences and insights are interconnected and we intend for our participation to be a practice of interconnectedness, rather than based on isolated, standalone papers. As articulated by Australian aboriginal activist Lilla Watson and her colleagues: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Sub Unit

• Literature: 21st Century

Chair

• Heather Fielding, U of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Roundtable Members

• Heather Fielding, U of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

• Anna Lordan, Oberlin College

• Olha Poliukhovych, National U of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (Ukraine)

• Mariia Shuvalova, National U of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (Ukraine)