PROGRAMME

 

SATURDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2026

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9:15–9:30 | Registration  

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9:30–9:45 | Welcome notes

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9:45–10:30  | KEYNOTE SPEECH
Prof. Dimitris Papanikolaou

Professor of Modern Greek and Cultural Studies and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford.

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What Gender Has Taught Us: Writing, Identity, Intersectionality, Citizenship

The keynote lecture seeks to highlight the immense contribution of feminist studies and gender studies to the history and theory of literature, and to raise, rather than answer, a series of questions about the relationship between gender/sexuality, literary form, and the literary and cultural canon. How is literary history reread and/or rewritten from a gender perspective? How is a gender-based approach articulated in relation to literary and cultural form? What is the relationship between representation, the gendered subjectivity/positionality of creators, and the reception of a cultural text?

In the second part, the discussion will broaden to highlight the intersections of gender and sexuality with categories such as ethnicity, nationality, (minority) identity, and class.

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10:30–10:45 | Coffee Break

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10:45–12:00

SESSION II | Gender, Literature and Cyprus: Critical and Comparative Approaches

Dr Afroditi Athanasopoulou

Associate Professor of Modern Greek Literature, University of Cyprus

“The Epsilons of Eleni”: A Case Study of “Women’s Poetry” in Cyprus

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Taking the poetry of the distinguished Cypriot poet Pitsa Galazi (1940–2023) as a case study, the paper examines the metaphorical use of elements of women’s experience and sexuality to depict the island’s modern historical ordeal. At the same time, it explores the intersections between gender, the body, poetic language, memory, and history, bringing into question the very category of “women’s poetry” within the context of Cypriot literature.

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Dr Maria Siakalli

Special Adjunct Staff, University of Cyprus

Memory, Common Ground and Women’s Experience: Cyprus-Centred Poetry by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Women Poets after 1974

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This paper examines the poetic work of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot women poets born before 1974, who, carrying vivid memories both of coexistence on a united island and of the events that led to its division, have shaped, in the post-war period, a Cyprus-centred and inclusive discourse addressed to all Cypriots. Focusing on the central themes of this poetry — such as trauma, loss, memory, reconciliation, and the questioning of dominant national narratives — the paper highlights the commonalities and differences between the two communities through the lens of women’s experience, presenting women’s poetic voice as an alternative, peaceful space for encounter and healing.

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Dr. Salamis Aysegul Sentug Tugyan

Academic, writer and poet. She holds a PhD in Contemporary Fiction from the University of Kent.

Postmemory and Poetics in Contemporary Cyprus-Centred Women’s Poetry

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Cyprus’s contemporary political landscape continues to be shaped by the enduring consequences of colonialism, displacement and territorial division. This paper explores how contemporary poets of postmemory, writing in Greek and Turkish, confront, examine and reshape this inherited trauma, alongside other themes handed down by the poets of memory. The research focuses on how poets of postmemory critically engage with, reinterpret or actively resist the official legacy of their ancestors, deconstructing the ossified, male-dominated establishment that perpetuates physical and psychological division, while simultaneously redefining relationships with the past and envisioning new forms of feminist belonging in the future.

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Ioanna Chrysovitsioti

DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford (Medieval and Modern Languages)

Writing from the Margins: Women Writers from Cyprus’s Minorities and the Work of Nora Nadjarian

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This paper examines women’s writing in the context of Cyprus’s religious minorities, focusing on the work of Armenian Cypriot writer Nora Nadjarian. Through an analysis of selected literary texts by Nadjarian, it explores the intersections of gender, minority identity, language and memory, as well as the ways in which gendered power relations are represented. At the same time, the paper problematises the concept of “minority women’s writing” and examines how Nadjarian’s work broadens established understandings of Cypriot literary identity.

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12:00–12:15 | Questions and Discussion

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12:15–13:30
ROUND TABLE  | Women Write Cyprus: Literature, Gender and Contemporary Experience

 

MODERATOR

Eftychia Panayiotou (poet, PhD in Modern Greek Literature)

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PARTICIPANTS

Marilena Zackheos (poet, academic)

Constantia Soteriou (writer)

Neşe Yaşın (poet, academic)

Erina Charalambous (writer)

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13:30–14:00

SMALL RECEPTION