Dr Odrekhivska at 'The Future of CEE Studies in Light of Russia’s War Against Ukraine'.

Dr. Iryna Odrekhivska, Lecturer in Ukrainian and East European Culture at UCL SSEES, recently participated in the prestigious international conference “The Future of Central and East European Studies in the Light of Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine” (17-19 October 2024). Organized by The Pilecki Institute in Warsaw in partnership with several leading academic institutions (Harvard University, University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jagiellonian University and The Lithuanian Institute of History), the conference brought together scholars from around the world to discuss the current state and future prospects of Central and East European studies.

It was a stimulating intellectual exchange that explored a wide range of topics, including the renaissance of imperial studies, mental mapping and the “moveability” of East Central Europe, the return of the Cold War paradigm, and the state of archives in the region.

Dr. Odrekhivska contributed to the conference by presenting on the geopolitics of knowledge production and its impact on the transnational image of Ukrainian culture. As the humanities and social sciences embrace both the decolonial and translation turns, which enable a detachment from entrenched narratives, a critical interrogation of their legitimacy and a renewed inter-epistemic dialogue, she explored the transformative potential of integrating Translation and Decolonial studies within the field of Slavic Studies. Specifically, in her presentation she showcased how past translations of Ukrainian material (both literature and academic discourse) into English, a lingua franca of our modernity, involved deliberate selection, categorization, and appropriation, resulting in the exclusion of elements that did not align with the predetermined boundaries of the established epistemic domain, namely the Russian imperial and later Soviet lens.