Context:
After dreams of a borderless world towards the end of the last century (Ohmae 1999), a phase of rebordering and a renaissance of borders in the first vicennial of the 21st century, the war in Ukraine, particularly its nation-wide escalation since 24 February 2022, brings about a paradigm shift for the study of borders.
Topics:
Given the particular role of cultural productions in this war, and furthermore anticipating a rich cultural production emerging from the related trauma and the flight and displacement of millions of Ukrainians, we aim at shedding light onto the cultural construction of Ukrainian borders through an intertwined analysis of discursive, narrative, and mediatic negotiations of Ukrainian-European, and Ukrainian-North American identities. Analyzing and interpreting constructions of national identities without falling into the trap of nationalism requires interrelated perspectives also across borders.
Work Packages:
- WP1: Crossing Borders: Ukrainian Diasporic Literature
- WP2: Cultural Border Policies in Ukrainian and Polish Literature
- WP 3: Cultural Construction of Ukrainian Borders in Populist Discourses
- WP 4: Displaced Ukrainian and North American Children
Strategic Cooperation:
The project is conducted under the leadership of Prof. Fellner at Saarland University by border researchers from Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, Ukraine, who are currently guest researchers at Saarland University. Through this collaboration, the cooperation relations between the UniGR-Center for Border Studies at Saarland University and their partner university in Mykolaiv is to be strengthened, particularly in this difficult time of war.
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