English language prose by women

The place of a woman in literature has been challenged as often as in other fields. Women writers for centuries have struggled to ensure that evaluation of their works would not be based on gender, but on professional qualities, creativity and talent. Women’s literature that came afterwards tried to move away from the standard of men’s literary tradition, positioning themselves as a new cultural phenomenon.

Modern prose by women is a special matter of discussion. A new social status of women required new forms of narration and new female characters. Women and men are no longer competitors, and women can write about interesting to them topics with more freedom and frankness.

English female writers and their works have always been of much interest to people around the world. For example, Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson and Zadie Smith. First female novels by Charlotte Bronte were based on old canons, but modern female prose is distinguished by certain innovations. Novels of Jeanette Winterson are known for vivid metaphors, Iris Murdoch works celebrate intellectuality, and Zadie Smith’s novels are examples of postcolonial prose (it is distinguished by combination of many different people’s traditions).

Speaker

Nina Shcherbak, Associate Professor in the Department of English Philology and Cultural Linguistics at St Petersburg University, Master of Arts (the United Kingdom), writer and screenwriter. She is also a scriptwriter for science television shows, author of fifteen monographs, and books on linguistics, literature, language philosophy, and English literature.

The lecture will be held as part of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg University, the first university in Russia.

The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous translation into Spanish.

Registration