Faculty & Staff

English Language and Literature
Chair, Professor
Graduate Program in Women and Gender Studies (SMU/MSVU) Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program (SMU)
Phone: 902-491-6274
Office: MN319
Email: tatjana.takseva@smu.ca

Research Website

Overview

Having studied English Language and Literature at Belgrade University (Serbia) and the University of Cyril and Methodius in Skopje (North Macedonia), Tatjana emigrated to Canada where she earned a Master’s Degree, and then a Ph.D. in English Studies and Book History from the University of Toronto (2003). In 2004 she joined the Department of English Language and Literature, where she is currently Full Professor and Chair. She is also cross appointed to the graduate Women and Gender Studies program, and she regularly teaches courses in women, gender, and sexuality/reproductive justice.  Tatjana’s approach to English Studies is interdisciplinary, always oriented toward the intersections among language, discourse, and diverse facets of culture. Methodologically, her own research has been interdisciplinary for over two decades, and her publications include topics in early modern literature and culture, nation building and identity politics, feminist theory, motherhood and the maternal, sexual violence, and digital media.  

Publications

Books

• Mothers Under Fire: Mothering in Conflict Areas,  (with Arlene Sgoutas. 2015). Publisher’s website: https://demeterpress.org/books/mothers-under-fire-mothering-in-conflict-areas/
• Social Software and the Evolution of User Expertise: Future Trends in Knowledge Creation and Dissemination (2012). Publisher’s website: https://www.igi-global.com/book/social-software-evolution-user-expertise/67410
• SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETIC GENRES AS SOCIAL CATEGORIES A New Reading of the Poetry of John Donne (2010).  Publisher’s website: https://mellenpress.com/book/SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY-POETIC-GENRES-AS-SOCIAL-CATEGORIES-A-New-Reading-of-the-Poetry-of-John-Donne/8116/

 

Selected Published Articles

• “Thinking against Trauma Binaries: The Interdependence of Personal and Collective Trauma in the Narratives of Bosnian Women Rape Survivors", co-authored with Mythili Rajiva.  Feminist Theory, December 2020. doi:10.1177/1464700120978863). 
• “Between Trauma and Resilience: A Transnational Reading of Women’s Life Writing about Wartime Rape in Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina,” co-authored with Agatha Schwartz. Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History, 14(1):124-143. doi: 10.3167/asp.2020.140109.
• “One Is Not Born but Rather Becomes a Mother: Claiming the Maternal in Women and Gender Studies,” Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement. Matricentric Feminism Issue. 10. 1-2 (2019): 27-44. Accessible at: https://jarm.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jarm/article/view/40552/36723.
• “Post-war Yugoslavism and Yugonostalgia as Expressions of Multiethnic Solidarity and Tolerance in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Special Topic Issue: New Solidarities: Migration, Mobility, Diaspora, and Ethnic Tolerance in Southeast Europe.  New Diversities, 21.1 (2019):87-101.
• “Motherhood Studies and Feminist Theory: Elisions and Intersections.” Motherlines. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Engagement 9.1 (2018):177-194 .
• “Building a Culture of Peace and Collective Memory in Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo’s Museum of War Childhood.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 18.1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12265.
• “Response to whether the definition of the term “children born of war” and vulnerabilities of children from recent conflict and post-conflict settings should be broadened.” Acta Medica Academica. Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 46.2 (2017): 177-179. doi: 10.5644/ama2006-124.206.
• “Hybridity, Ethnicity and Nationhood: Legacies of Interethnic War, Wartime Rape and the Potential for Bridging the Ethnic Divide in Post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Tatjana Takševa and Agatha Schwartz. National Identities. April, 2017. doi: 10.1080/14608944.2017.1298580
• “Mother Love, Maternal Ambivalence, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering." Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy 32.1 (2016).  doi:10.1111/hypa.12310.
• “Genocidal Rape, Enforced Impregnation and the Discourse of Serbian National Identity.”  CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 17.3 (2015). http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol17/iss3/2/
• “The Commercialization of Motherhood and Mothering in the Context of Globalization: Anglo-American Perspectives.” Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement. Mothers and the Economy: The Economics of Mothering. 3.1 (2012): 134-148.
• “Knowledge and Expertise Redefined: Consensus Sapientia in the Digital Era and Reframing the Modalities of Teaching and Learning.” TRANS: Internet Journal for Cultural Studies. 17.7.9 (2010). Accessible at: http://www.inst.at/trans/17Nr/7-9/7-9_chorney7.htm.
• “The Commercialization of Higher Education as a Threat to the Values of Ethical Citizenship in a Global World.” UCFV Review, 2.1 (2008): 8- 27.
• “Hypertexts and Reader-Engagement: Reading, Writing, Adapting.” EnterText, 7.3 (2007): 288-310. Accessible at:  http://arts.brunel.ac.uk/gate/entertext/issue_7_3.htm
• “Interactive Reading, Early Modern Texts and Hypertext: A Lesson from the Past.” Academic Commons, December 2005. Accessible at: http://www.academiccommons.org/interactive-reading-early-modern-texts-and-hypertext-a-lesson-from-the-past/
• Milton's Paradise Lost and Global Culture: a Christian Epic in the Multicultural Classroom."  Professional Studies Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2.1 (2005): 48-65. 
• "John Donne's Satires: How Will They Reform?" Reader: Essays in Reader Oriented Theory, Criticism and Pedagogy, 50 (2004): 10-57.

Webinar:

• Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence: Challenges, Insights and Best Practices. https://fic.tufts.edu/video/webinar-children-born-of-wartime-sexual-violence-challenges-insights-and-best-practices/