Eva C. Karpinski
School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies
Professor
Office: Founders College, 233
Phone: (416) 650-8144
Email: evakarp@yorku.ca
Primary website: http://people.laps.yorku.ca/people.nsf/researcherprofile?readform&shortname=evakarp
Accepting New Graduate Students
Eva C. Karpinski (Ph.D. York University) is a Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University in Toronto. She teaches feminist theory and methodology as well as life writing. She combines interest in auto/biography studies with translation studies, poststructuralist and anti-racist theories, trauma and transnational studies. She has published articles in edited collections and journals, including a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Literature Compass, Review of International American Studies, Men and Masculinities, Studies in Canadian Literature, Canadian Women Studies, Atlantis, Canadian Ethic Studies, and Resources for Feminist Research, among others. She co-edited, with Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood, a special issue of Open Letter, as well as a collection of essays, titled Trans/Acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard (2013). Her monograph "Borrowed Tongues": Life Writing Migration, and Translation was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in 2012. She has also edited a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies on "Broken Dialogues." Her co-edited book Life Writing Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas ( with Ricia Chansky) was published by Routledge in 2020. Her most recent book publications are: Translation, Semiotics, and Feminism: Selected Writings of Barbara Godard (co-edited with Elena Basile), published in the Key Thinkers on Translation Series (Routledge 2022), and Adaptation and Beyond: Hybrid Textualities (co-edited with Ewa Keblowska-Lawniczak), Routledge, 2023, published in the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature Series.
Recent publications:
“Getting an academic life: The untranslatable, or how to curate a Polish-Canadian CV.” In Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood: In the Spaces Provided, ed. Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle. Routledge 2024. 135-158.
“Joycean Biographics: Experimental Biographical Comics as Hybrid Adaptations.” In Hybrid
Transtextualities, Routledge, 2023. 24-48.
“From Testimony to Adaptation: Remedial Lives of Anne Frank.” Parallax (Special Issue “Holocaust Narratives in the Post-Testimonial Era”). 29,1 (2023/24): 83-103.
“Joycean Biographics: Experimental Biographical Comics as Hybrid Adaptations.” In Hybrid
Transtextualities, Routledge, 2023. 24-48.
“Qui sont-je?” Multilingual Entanglements in Üstün Bilgen-Reinart’s Porcelain Moon and Pomegranates: A Woman’s Trek through Turkey." TTR 32,1 (2018/2019): 89-109.
“Moving the Bones: Multilingual Plasticity in Marlene NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 45, 4 (December 2018): 639-645.
“Entangled Memories of Expulsion and Resettlement in post-1945 Germany and Poland:
Dialogue in Two Voices” (with Linda Warley). In Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Simona Mitroiu. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 87-106.
“Decolonizing Performance: Indigenous Translation in Monique Mojica’s Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way.” In Autobiography Across the Americas: Transnational Themes in Life Writing, ed. Ricia Chansky. NY: Routledge, 2017. 142-163.
"Can Multilingualism Be a Radical Force in Contemporary Canadian Theatre? Exploring the Option of Non-Translation.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada TRIC 38, 2 (2017): 153-167.
“Life in Boxes: History, Pedagogy, and Nation-Building in Canadian Biographics for Young Adults.” In Canadian Graphic Life Narratives, ed. Linda Warley and Candida Rifkin. Waterloo, Ont.: WLUP, 2016. 235-265.
Degrees
Ph.D. Women's Studies, York UniversityPh.D. American Literature, University of Poznan
M.A. English (summa cum laude), University of Wroclaw
Professional Leadership
Associate Editor of the journal a/b: Auto/Biography Studies
Research Interests
- SSHRC Insight Grant (Canadian Literary Biography: Gender and Genre), Principal Investigator, $80, 378 - 2021
- SSHRC Connection Grant for “Lives Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas” ($21,729) - 2017
- Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP) grand, from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Science. - 2013
- President's University-Wide Teaching Award, York University - 2011
- Asian Canadian: Beyond Autoethnography, Honorable Mention, The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Book Award - 2009
- -
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
A book project that involves transcribing and editing of a collection of letters exchanged between Canadian writer Myrna Kostash and Professor Nancy Burke, who pioneered the discipline of Canadian Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland, where she had lived from the mid-1980s to her death in 2006. Their rich correspondence begun in 1988 and covered a crucial period of Poland’s transition to post-communism. To be submitted to WLUP's Life Writing Series.
-
Summary:
A SSHRC Insight Grant project (awarded 2021-2025) for a four-year research that aims to take stock of the field of literary biography in Canada in the past forty years.
Description:The project's goals are three-pronged: (1) to generate a literary-historical archive of materials on the philosophy and praxis of literary biography emerging from personal interviews with 15 Canadian biographers; (2) to theorize and analyze literary biography as it has developed in Canada since the early 1980s, by examining 20 representative case studies through the combined theoretical framework of auto/biography studies, genre theory, rhetorical criticism, and feminist affect studies; (3) to reach beyond academic audiences to readers of popular biographies, writers of family biographies, and biography publishers, providing them with a simple tool kit for processing biographical representations.
Dialogue in Two Voices” (with Linda Warley). In Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Simona Mitroiu. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 87-106.
87-106
Approach to Teaching
Professor Eva C. Karpinski has taught thirty-six undergraduate courses at York and developed five of them. She has directed ten individual reading courses. She has coordinated and taught seven multi-section foundation courses with Teaching Assistants teams. She been a member of a PhD supervisory committee for three students. In 2011 Professor Karpinski received the President’s University Wide Teaching Award.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/GFWS6008 3.0 | M | Feminist Methodologies and Research Meth | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST4524 6.0 | A | Feminist Graphic Narratives | BLEN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST3555 6.0 | A | Genealogies of Feminist Theorizing | LECT |
Eva C. Karpinski (Ph.D. York University) is a Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University in Toronto. She teaches feminist theory and methodology as well as life writing. She combines interest in auto/biography studies with translation studies, poststructuralist and anti-racist theories, trauma and transnational studies. She has published articles in edited collections and journals, including a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Literature Compass, Review of International American Studies, Men and Masculinities, Studies in Canadian Literature, Canadian Women Studies, Atlantis, Canadian Ethic Studies, and Resources for Feminist Research, among others. She co-edited, with Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood, a special issue of Open Letter, as well as a collection of essays, titled Trans/Acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard (2013). Her monograph "Borrowed Tongues": Life Writing Migration, and Translation was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in 2012. She has also edited a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies on "Broken Dialogues." Her co-edited book Life Writing Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas ( with Ricia Chansky) was published by Routledge in 2020. Her most recent book publications are: Translation, Semiotics, and Feminism: Selected Writings of Barbara Godard (co-edited with Elena Basile), published in the Key Thinkers on Translation Series (Routledge 2022), and Adaptation and Beyond: Hybrid Textualities (co-edited with Ewa Keblowska-Lawniczak), Routledge, 2023, published in the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature Series.
Recent publications:
“Getting an academic life: The untranslatable, or how to curate a Polish-Canadian CV.” In Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood: In the Spaces Provided, ed. Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle. Routledge 2024. 135-158.
“Joycean Biographics: Experimental Biographical Comics as Hybrid Adaptations.” In Hybrid
Transtextualities, Routledge, 2023. 24-48.
“From Testimony to Adaptation: Remedial Lives of Anne Frank.” Parallax (Special Issue “Holocaust Narratives in the Post-Testimonial Era”). 29,1 (2023/24): 83-103.
“Joycean Biographics: Experimental Biographical Comics as Hybrid Adaptations.” In Hybrid
Transtextualities, Routledge, 2023. 24-48.
“Qui sont-je?” Multilingual Entanglements in Üstün Bilgen-Reinart’s Porcelain Moon and Pomegranates: A Woman’s Trek through Turkey." TTR 32,1 (2018/2019): 89-109.
“Moving the Bones: Multilingual Plasticity in Marlene NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 45, 4 (December 2018): 639-645.
“Entangled Memories of Expulsion and Resettlement in post-1945 Germany and Poland:
Dialogue in Two Voices” (with Linda Warley). In Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Simona Mitroiu. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 87-106.
“Decolonizing Performance: Indigenous Translation in Monique Mojica’s Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way.” In Autobiography Across the Americas: Transnational Themes in Life Writing, ed. Ricia Chansky. NY: Routledge, 2017. 142-163.
"Can Multilingualism Be a Radical Force in Contemporary Canadian Theatre? Exploring the Option of Non-Translation.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada TRIC 38, 2 (2017): 153-167.
“Life in Boxes: History, Pedagogy, and Nation-Building in Canadian Biographics for Young Adults.” In Canadian Graphic Life Narratives, ed. Linda Warley and Candida Rifkin. Waterloo, Ont.: WLUP, 2016. 235-265.
Degrees
Ph.D. Women's Studies, York UniversityPh.D. American Literature, University of Poznan
M.A. English (summa cum laude), University of Wroclaw
Professional Leadership
Associate Editor of the journal a/b: Auto/Biography Studies
Research Interests
Awards
- SSHRC Insight Grant (Canadian Literary Biography: Gender and Genre), Principal Investigator, $80, 378 - 2021
- SSHRC Connection Grant for “Lives Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre in the Americas” ($21,729) - 2017
- Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP) grand, from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Science. - 2013
- President's University-Wide Teaching Award, York University - 2011
- Asian Canadian: Beyond Autoethnography, Honorable Mention, The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Book Award - 2009
- -
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
A book project that involves transcribing and editing of a collection of letters exchanged between Canadian writer Myrna Kostash and Professor Nancy Burke, who pioneered the discipline of Canadian Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland, where she had lived from the mid-1980s to her death in 2006. Their rich correspondence begun in 1988 and covered a crucial period of Poland’s transition to post-communism. To be submitted to WLUP's Life Writing Series.
-
Summary:
A SSHRC Insight Grant project (awarded 2021-2025) for a four-year research that aims to take stock of the field of literary biography in Canada in the past forty years.
Description:The project's goals are three-pronged: (1) to generate a literary-historical archive of materials on the philosophy and praxis of literary biography emerging from personal interviews with 15 Canadian biographers; (2) to theorize and analyze literary biography as it has developed in Canada since the early 1980s, by examining 20 representative case studies through the combined theoretical framework of auto/biography studies, genre theory, rhetorical criticism, and feminist affect studies; (3) to reach beyond academic audiences to readers of popular biographies, writers of family biographies, and biography publishers, providing them with a simple tool kit for processing biographical representations.
Project Type: FundedAll Publications
Dialogue in Two Voices” (with Linda Warley). In Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Simona Mitroiu. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 87-106.
87-106
Approach to Teaching
Professor Eva C. Karpinski has taught thirty-six undergraduate courses at York and developed five of them. She has directed ten individual reading courses. She has coordinated and taught seven multi-section foundation courses with Teaching Assistants teams. She been a member of a PhD supervisory committee for three students. In 2011 Professor Karpinski received the President’s University Wide Teaching Award.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/GFWS6008 3.0 | M | Feminist Methodologies and Research Meth | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST4524 6.0 | A | Feminist Graphic Narratives | BLEN |
| Fall/Winter 2024 | AP/GWST3555 6.0 | A | Genealogies of Feminist Theorizing | LECT |
