Research Centre for Humanities

Dr. Giustina Selvelli

Giustina

Assistant Professor
giustina.selvelli@ung.si
+386 5 33 15 237
Academia
Research gate
SICRIS

Research activity

Giustina Selvelli researches topics related to diaspora communities in Southeast Europe (Armenian, Jewish and Romani), cultural and linguistic diversity in border regions, ethnolinguistic Minorities and writing Systems. In addition, she is developing new research on questions of forced displacement and of (eco)cultural memory preservation.

Research areas and keywords

Diaspora, Migration and Cultural Memory, Language and national identity, Multilingualism and Multigraphism in Southeast Europe, Ethnolinguistic Minorities’ literature and media.

Selected publications

Books:

  • The Alphabet of Discord. The Ideologization of Writing Systems in the Balkans since the Breakup of Multiethnic Empires. Balkan Politics and Society Series, Ibidem, 2021 (forthcoming).

Articles:

  • “Suren Vetsigian’s lost Armenian Homeland and the Quest for New Forms of Belonging in his ‘Autobiography. His guiding hand to serve my people’”, to appear in: Studi Slavistici XVIII 2021 (1).
  • Reflections of a Vanished Time. The Melancholy of Objects in Georgi Gospodinov’s and Orhan Pamuk’s Works. In: Philologica Jassyensia, July 2019, vol. XV, nr. 1 (29), pp. 253–268.
  • Preserving the Postmemory of the Genocide: the Armenian Diaspora’s Institutions in Plovdiv, in: Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Studia Territorialia 2, Prague, 2018, pp. 89-116.
  • The Clash between Latin and Arabic Alphabets among the Turkish Community in Bulgaria in the Interwar Period. In: Balkan Araştırma Enstitüsü Dergisi/Journal of Balkan Research Institute Vol. 7, nr. 2, Edirne University, 2018, pp. 367-39
  • Identity and Multiplicity in Canetti’s and Wagenstein’s Birthplaces: Exploring the Rhizomatic Roots of Europe. In: Bulgarian Studies Journal, Vol. I, 2017, pp. 60-85.
  • Writing a New Space: Written Expressions of Utopia and Resistance during the Gezi Park Protests in Istanbul. In: Etnološka Tribina. Journal of the Croatian Ethnological Society, Zagreb, 2016, pp. 94-110.
  • Su alcuni aspetti ideologici dei sistemi di traslitterazione degli alfabeti cirillici nei Balcani. In: Studi Slavistici, Firenze University Press, Vol. XII (2016), str. 159- 180.
  • Alphabet and Writing in the Armenian Diaspora’s Intelligentsia of Plovdiv. Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. In: Mediterranean Language Review, University of Heidelberg, Harrassowitz Verlag, Vol. 22 (2015), pp. 157-188

Selected projects

  • Member of the research division on Multilingualism, Department of Cultural Analysis, University of Klagenfurt/Celovec (2018-2019)
  • Erasmus Mundus SUNBEAM Postdoctoral Fellow, with a project on the inclusion of Roma communities into the cultural activities of the 2021 European Capital of Culture, University of Novi Sad (2017-2018)
  • Member of the interdepartmental Research group on Christianity, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2014-2017)
  • Bulgarian lexicography project to create a Bulgarian/Italian dictionary, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2013-2015).

CV

Giustina Selvelli was born in Trieste in 1984. She completed her high school studies at the linguistic D’Annunzio school in Gorizia (2003) and her Bachelor Studies in Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Trieste (2008) where she graduated with a thesis on the relationship between German and Serbian Romanticism. During her Master studies, she was enrolled at University Ca’ Foscari of Venice in the Program of Anthropology, Ethnology and Ethnolinguistic, graduating in 2011 with a thesis on the Armenian diaspora in Bulgaria. She obtained her PhD in Slavic Studies from the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice with a dissertation on writing systems and nationalism in the Balkans (2017). She has been an Erasmus Mundus Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Novi Sad (2017-2018) and a Senior Scientist in the field of multilingualism at Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt/Celovec (2018-2019). She has gained extensive fieldwork experience in Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Armenia, and taught at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, at the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, and Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul. Since June 2020, she is employed at the University of Nova Gorica.