Project description: One of the key challenges facing literary criticism in Serbia today is the limited access to media platforms for new and progressive critical voices. Innovative and unconventional perspectives rarely have the opportunity to contribute to public discussions on literature. At the same time, the digital transformation of the media landscape has not been accompanied by the development of a diverse online ecosystem for literary criticism. The limited number of platforms dedicated to literary criticism reflects the broader lack of diversity within Serbia’s dominant literary canon. In addition, there is still no well-established space where readers, writers, and literary critics can exchange their experiences of reading and interpreting contemporary literature from queer, feminist, and other progressive perspectives.
As part of the project, the association conducted the survey What Do You Read in Rebellious Times? An Analysis of Reading Habits, examining audience reading practices and engagement with contemporary feminist and queer literature. The survey findings were presented at the Čumić Book Fest in Belgrade. The project also included three reading workshops held in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Markovac, focusing on contemporary women writers and feminist literature. In addition, six podcast episodes were produced and published, alongside a series of public discussions organized in Užice, Belgrade, and Novi Sad. Each podcast episode explored a literary theme while connecting it to broader social questions, including peace and war in twenty-first-century literature, sexual liberation and desire, ecology in literature, and horror in feminist writing. The public discussion programme linked issues of literary research, critical reading, and socially engaged literature with contemporary social developments, adapting each event to the needs and context of the local community.
The project’s success lies in its contribution to strengthening participants’ capacity to critically engage with feminist and queer literature while encouraging them to create their own literary and critical content. More broadly, it empowered young people and other participants to engage more actively with contemporary literature and literary criticism as a whole.
Grant amount: 1.550.000,00 RSD
