Keynote Speakers
Maria Zubrytska (L'viv National University).
Professor Zubrytska is the author of Homo legens: Reading as a Social and Cultural Phenomenon (2004 Ukrainian Book of the Year Award in the category of Humanities). Her anthology of literary and cultural theory Word, Sign, Discourse (1996) played a pioneering role in the encounter of Ukrainian humanities scholars with newer Western theory. Professor Zubrytska, who is the Deputy Rector (Teaching) at the Ivan Franko L'viv National University, will spend three months at Monash University as Faculty of Arts Distinguished Visiting Scholar.
Maksym Strikha (Open Politics Institute, Kyiv).
Dr Strikha, who holds a Doctorate of Sciences in physics and mathematics, is Director of research programs at the Open Politics Institute in Kyiv and Chief of Laboratory at the Ukrainian Centre for Cultural Studies. He is well known as a literary translator and a commentator on culture and cultural policy in Ukraine. His many publications include Dante in Ukrainian Literature(2003), a translation into Ukrainian of Dante's The Divine Comedy(2001), translations from T.S. Eliot, Swinburne, D.H. Lawrence and Emily Dickinson, and seven articles in the collection Essays on Ukrainian Popular Culture (1998).