Meet & Greet with Visiting Area Studies Researchers | Natasha Gordinsky (Haifa), Valentin Kalinov (Plovdiv/Sofia), Slava Savova (Sofia)

The ScienceCampus and its partners are delighted to invite you to a meet and greet session with visiting researchers based in Regensburg. 

Join us on 6 February for an informal exchange with Valentin Kalinov (Plovdiv/Sofia) from the ScienceCampus, the GS OSES (UR) visiting fellow Natasha Gordinsky (Haifa), and visiting doctoral fellow Slava Savova (Sofia). This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about their research, academic backgrounds, and institutions. Following the session, Natasha Gordinsky will deliver a talk as part of the joint LSC & GS OSES research colloquium. Her lecture, titled Speaking Hebrew in the Russian Empire: Uri Nissan Gnessin’s Poetics of Literary Dubbing  will begin at 14:15 in room 319 (3rd floor) of the Altes Finanzamt.

Bios:

Natasha Gordinsky is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa and holds a PhD in Hebrew literature from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her current research focuses on Hebrew modernism and on contemporary translingual literature. She is an author of two books: “Ein elend schönes Land.” Gattung und Gedächtnis in Lea Goldbergs hebräischer Literatur, transl. by Rainer Wenzel, Göttingen 2019 (first publ.: In Three Landscapes. Leah Goldberg’s Early Writings, Jerusalem 2016 [Heb.]); Kanon und Diskurs. Über Literarisierung jüdischer Erfahrungswelten, Göttingen 2009 (with Susanne Zepp). Dr Gordinsky has recently co-edited two volumes: In Their Surroundings. Localizing Modern Jewish Literatures in Eastern Europe, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,2023 (together with Efrat Gal-Ed, Sabine Koller and Yfaat Weiss) and Disseminating Jewish Literatures. Knowledge, Research, Curricula, De Gruyter 2020 (together with Susanne Zepp, Ruth Fine, Kader Konuk, Claudia Olk and Galili Shahar)

Valentin Kalinov is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at Paissiy Hilendarski University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. As a scholar of social and intellectual history, his research focuses on the intersections of philosophy, critical theory, psychoanalysis, and the social history of ideas. His work investigates the processes of knowledge production, transfer, and transformation within psychotherapy and mental health sciences during the communist era in Eastern Europe, particularly in Bulgaria. Dr Kalinov’s current research project explores the translation and adaptation of Western psychotherapeutic discourses in the socialist context, offering a critical perspective on how such practices intersected with ideological power and resistance. His forthcoming monograph, Reading Freud in State Socialism: Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy during the Communist Era, delves into these themes, situating Bulgarian developments within the broader Eastern Bloc and drawing comparisons with other socialist states, including the GDR, Yugoslavia, and Hungary.

Slava Savova is a researcher, artist and architect working at the crossing between environmental and medical history. She focuses on water, resource extraction and waste with current projects exploring the entanglements between nature, politics and healthcare. Since 2022 she has been part of the international research project “Taming the European Leviathan: The Legacy of Post-War Medicine and the Common Good” project (ERC-2019-SyG – ERC Synergy Grant) as a doctoral student. Her dissertation with a preliminary title Solid Structures, Aqueous Healing: Balneosanatorium Infrastructures Between Natural Resources and Medical Technologies (1950s – 1980s) explores the history of postwar balneology in Bulgaria. Her solo show "Ore", currently on view at Community Center "Svetlina Kremikovtsi – 1906", focuses on the environmental history of the iron ore open-pit mine near the village of Kremikovtsi and the recent process of its unplanned rewilding.