Stiliana Milkova

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova was interviewed by Oberlin alumna Bri di Monda for The Smart Set magazine. In the interview, Milkova discusses her recent book Elena Ferrante as World Literature, images of disgust in Maggie Gyllenhaal's film adaptation of Ferrante's novel The Lost Daughter, and the "Carmen Mola" vs. "Elena Ferrante" debate.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova coedited a special issue of the online journal Reading in Translation on Italian writer Domenico Starnone. The issue contains 13 essays, translations, reviews, and an exclusive interview with Starnone. 

On September 3, Stiliana Milkova, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, co-organized and participated in "Elena Ferrante's Lost Daughters," a round table discussion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on the occasion of the premier of the 2021 film "The Lost Daughter" starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. The event was part of the cultural association Isola Edipo.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova interviewed the Bulgarian-born writer Nataliya Deleva and her English translator, the Bulgarian-born Izidora Angel, about Deleva's novel Four Minutes (2021), and her forthcoming novel, written in English, Arrival (2022). In the interview, Milkova, Deleva, and Angel reflect on exophonic writing, literary translation, and the power of collaboration between women.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova coedited a special issue of the scholarly journal Modern Language Notes (MLN, 136:1, 2021) and published an article in the special issue.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova published two essays, one in the Bulgarian literary journal Literaturen Vestnik (in Bulgarian), and the other in the online journal Reading in Translation. Her Bulgarian essay discusses her recently published book Elena Ferrante as World Literature (Bloomsbury Academic) while her online publication reflects on reading Elena Ferrante's new novel in Bulgarian translation.

Stiliana Milkova, associate professor of comparative literature, published an article in the scholarly journal "Gender / Sexuality / Italy." Titled "Side By Side: Female Collaboration in Ferrante Fiction and Ferrante Studies," the article proposes that a double creation of female genealogies is at work within Ferrante’s novels and in the critical field that studies them.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova edited a special issue for Reading in Translation on the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg that features 15 essays, interviews, and two first English translations of works by Italo Calvino and by Natalia Ginzburg. Milkova co-translated Italo Calvino's essay "Natalia Ginzburg or the Possibilities of the Bourgeois Novel." 

The book launch of Elena Ferrante as World Literature (Bloomsbury Academic) by Stiliana Milkova, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, will be hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Dublin at 7 p.m. (GMT)/2 p.m. (ET) on Tuesday, February 23.

Elena Ferrante as World Literature studies Ferrante’s works as world literature—that is, as literature that circulates in translation outside its culture of origins. Beginning with the creation of the author “Elena Ferrante” and the figure of the translator, Milkova delves into the intricacies of Ferrante’s texts, offering both an introduction to and a sustained reading of Ferrante’s entire literary production to date. The volume will be presented by Dr. Enrica Maria Ferrara (Trinity College Dublin) in conversation with the Milkova and Ferrante's translator, Ann Goldstein. Register your attendance and receive a link to the event, which will be held via Zoom.

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova was selected as one of three judges for 2021 Italian Prose in Translation Prize awarded by the American Association of Literary Translators (ALTA). The other two judges are Oberlin alum Will Schutt and translator and writer Minna Zallman Proctor.

Stiliana Milkova's invited review of Elena Ferrante's new novel The Lying Life of Adults was published in Public Books. 

Stiliana Milkova, associate professor of comparative literature and Italian, edited a special issue of the online journal Reading in Translation dedicated to Elena Ferrante's new novel The Lying Life of Adults. The special issue consists of seven original articles and two first English translations of essays by the Spanish writers Eloy Tizón and Greta Alonso. Professor Milkova also published in The Literary Review a translation from Italian of Tiziano Scarpa's poem "The Philosophy Student."

Stiliana Milkova, associate professor of comparative literature and Italian,  published an essay on the HBO TV series "My Brilliant Friend" in Arcade. 

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova was interviewed in Italian about the RAI/HBO TV series "My Brilliant Friend." In her interview, Milkova discusses a key change in the adaptation of the TV series from Elena Ferrante's eponymous cycle of four novels. Milkova also reflectes on the role of place and space in Ferrante's novels.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova published a translation from Italian of a long interview with the Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero in the scholarly journal Narrative (2020).

Stiliana Milkova, assistant professor of comparative literature and Italian, published an essay in the Michigan Quarterly Review, reflecting on the pandemic, translation, and the myths of reading and creativity.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova was an invited speaker at the "Global Ferrante" seminar in Siena, Italy. You can watch her presentation in Italian.

Milkova's translation of Alessandro Baricco's "The Boodman Syndrome" was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova reviewed Elena Ferrante's new volume of essays Incidental Inventions.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova publishes two translations from Italian: Alessandro Baricco's "The Boodman Syndrome" in the Arkansas International and Dario Voltolini's "At Obrycki's" in Michigan Quarterly Review.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Stiliana Milkova co-organized the first international conference on Elena Ferrante, held June 7-8, 2019 at Durham University (UK). The conference gathered scholars from around the world to discuss the global phenomenon of the contemporary Italian writer whose identity is unknown. In spring 2019, Professor Milkova taught a related course titled The Global Phenomenon of Elena Ferrante.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova published an article in the prestigious Italian scholarly journal Contemporanea. Written in Italian and titled "Il Minotauro e la doppia Arianna: Spazio liminale, labirinto urbano e città femminile," the article proposes the city, and more specifically the city as labyrinth, as a framework for analyzing Elena Ferrante’s novels.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova gave an invited lecture at New York University's Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò titled "Ariadne and the Minotaur: Literal and Symbolic Labyrinth in Elena Ferrante's 'My Brilliant Friend'." Oberlin alumni and current students were in attendance. The talk was recorded and can be accessed here.

Professor Milkova was also an invited participant in a round table on Elena Ferrante at Rutgers University where she joined a conversation about the study of Ferrante's works.

Stiliana Milkova, assistant professor of comparative literature, was interviewed on "Fahrenheit," the leading program about culture and literature which is broadcast on Italian national radio. The interview covered the first international conference about the author Elena Ferrante which took place on April 7, 2017 in Naples, Italy. Professor Milkova was an invited participant at the conference.

The podcast of the interview (in Italian) can be heard here.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova organized two two-day seminars on "Frames in Literature and Across the Arts" at the convention of the American Comparative Literature Association at New York University, which ran from March 20 to 23. She also presented a paper on literary frames in Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.