Anastasia Gladoshchuk

Please tell us about your research project.

I am currently in the fourth year of my PhD in Comparative Literature at the Université Grenoble Alpes, supervised by Pr. Delphine Rumeau. In my thesis I explore the literary dimension of fascination for Mexico in the 1900-1930s, provoked by a series of archaeological discoveries and the events of the Mexican Revolution, in its relation to the development of modernist practices in France, England and Russia. Analysing the functions and uses of Mexican references and imagery, I reveal coherence in modernist approaches and representations of Mexico. This permits to conclude on the emergence of «mexicanism», comparable to «orientalism»: a discourse that reflects not the historic, geographical, artistic realities of the land, but European conceptions and aspirations. At the same time I am analysing the parallel process of construction of Mexican national identity within the movement of the «Mexican Renaissance», showing that Mexico took an active part in the international reception and diffusion of its own image.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?

I have been awarded a mobility grant as part of the GATES MaCI project between the Université Grenoble Alpes and the Maison Française d’Oxford. A month in Oxford permits me to complete a bibliographical research on English and Russian receptions of Mexican literature, as well as discuss my project with professors specialising in modernist studies.

First impressions of Oxford/the University?

Oxford gives a very special sense of lightness and clarity. My daily walks to the Bodleian old library are really inspiring, overwhelming with beauty. Living here feels a bit unreal, cinematic and poetic. It makes me simply happy to walk in the steps of Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot and Constantin Balmont (Russian symbolist poet, one of the protagonists of my thesis, who was invited to lecture in Oxford in 1897). You get to feel how time becomes eternity.