Intersectionality

This text, as well as two others written by my colleagues, is based on the papers and discussions included in the program of the seminar on intersectional analysis, held on 21 May 2021 at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences. The issues of intersectionality method, used in sociological research, and its productivity for the analysis of literary and film texts were discussed. The works considered at the seminar belong to different national literatures/ cultures and are written in different languages. These included Spanish, Serbian, German, Russian, Kazakh literatures, translations into Russian and English, and a film by an Irish filmmaker. Due to this spectrum, it has been possible to overcome the “mono-national” and “monolingual” approaches and to go beyond the “English- and Russian-centric” boundaries that often define literature teaching and related scholarly activities in Russia. The androcentricity of the discourse on literature has also been partially overcome; the works of female writers, often unfairly ousted from the canon, have gained prominence in the discussion. The publication contains a brief description of the intersectional approach, highlights the main points of discussion raised during the seminar, and presents several examples of analyses of works in the light of intersectional theory.