AT THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES

Visions and Approaches

Dr. Anna Saprykina

Interview by Paiman Maria Davarifard

imagofeminae: Anna, in 2021 you had a Research stay at the Free University of Berlin as part of the International Journalist Fellowship, what are you doing now?

Dr Anna Saprykina: After my research internship and fruitful work in collaboration with the Free University of Berlin, I managed to find a position as a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Siegen. I work in a research group on the Literature of Europe project, my working languages are German, French, English, Russian.

imagofeminae: Please tell us in more detail what exactly your team does?

Dr Anna Saprykina: Sure! We research the exchange between literary fields. Following Pierre Bourdieu, we understand the literary field as all the actors and creators of the field. These are, first of all, writers, publishers, literary agents, critics, literary scholars and, of course, translators and representatives of cultural exchange organizations that promote literary and cultural dialogue between fields. We trace how one work created in one literary field ends up in other literary fields, how it is adapted and perceived there. In this way, we are going to consider the stages of the formation of "world literature" according to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

imagofeminae: Very interesting research! How did you come up with this topic?

Dr Anna Saprykina: Oh! You are about to spend two hours with me! (laughing) Well, in short, I work within the framework of comparative studies. This is a direction in literary studies that involves a comparative approach to the object of study. For a long time, I studied foreign languages and then worked as a translator in international companies and as a teacher at universities. Therefore, for me, literature is a space for the implementation of language and culture. At the same time, a book in itself is an artifact of culture that can influence a national narrative many centuries later, and it is clear that narratives and cultures do not exist on their own, but in constant dialogue with other national narratives, with some more, with others less. This concerns my area of scientific interests. Regarding the research methods, I use both the classical comparative analysis of counter-flows (according to Alexander Veselovsky) from comparative studies, and the method of qualitative interviews from sociology, with which my colleagues, experts in sociology, help me a lot. In addition, since 2012 I have also been working as a journalist and therefore, I conducted a lot of interviews. By the way, I have completed a lot of internships in German media. In 2019, I participated at the Summer Academy for Journalists of the Institute for the Advancement of Young Journalists in Munich, in 2018 I worked as a guest Editor of SH:Z (Flensburger Tageblatt) in the framework of the international journalist program e.V. Marion Gräfin Dönhoff Program in Flensburg, in 2017 I did an internship at stern, G + J Verlag in Hamburg and Berlin. I am very grateful to my colleagues from these media for the invaluable experience that they shared with me, teaching me how to conduct high-quality interviews.

imagofeminae: Wow! What a wealth of experience you have!

Dr Anna Saprykina: Thank you! It's not even about experience, but about my cultural background and the great interweaving of cultures that I've been a part of while living in different countries. I was born in Uzbekistan (I learned the Uzbek language in kindergarten), finished school in the Kuban (Krasnodar Territory – I sang in a Cossack choir), graduated from the university in the Republic of Adygea (I studied the Adyghe language and national literature). After getting a degree in applied linguistics and teaching German and French I worked as a translator and teacher of foreign languages, as associate professor of the department of foreign languages at various universities. In 2019, I defended my dissertation on the works of Heinrich Böll. Earlier, I completed my master's degree in Paris at the Sorbonne university on the works of Anatole France in comparison with the dystopia of Yevgeny Zamyatin. All these experiences helped me decide on a scientific direction and understand what are my calling and love!

imagofeminae: What projects or research are you planning to implement in the near future?

Dr Anna Saprykina: I plan not to stop there (the results obtained in the literary field of Europe) and to begin studying the global literary field. For this, I believe it is important to study the American literary field and the ways in which American works enter the European market. For this purpose, I conduct interviews with representatives of the American literary field at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and also travel to the United States to such universities as the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Melon University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Chicago, etc.

imagofeminae: we wish you a good luck on your path! Thank you for sharing your visions with us.