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People

Dr Joanna Rzepa

Senior Lecturer
Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies (LiFTS)
Dr Joanna Rzepa

Profile

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Literature in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies. Before joining Essex, I held the post of Thomas Brown Assistant Professor in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, Trinity College Dublin. Before that, I was an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub, Arts & Humanities Research Institute, and an early career fellow at the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study. I also taught at the University of Warwick and University College London. I am a comparatist and a literary historian, and I teach and supervise on a wide range of topics in twentieth and twenty-first century literary cultures. My research focuses on Holocaust writing and testimony, book and publishing history, print culture and politics, and translation history. I also have a long-standing interest in modernism and cultural and intellectual history. My current project, which is supported by the Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2025-26), is situated at the juncture of Holocaust studies, publishing history, and translation studies. It investigates the transnational dissemination of testimonies originating in Poland by foregrounding the role of publishers and translators who made it possible for survivors’ narratives to reach global readership through English-language translations. It examines how the changing nature of the literary marketplace, translation practice, and politics have shaped the publishing of Holocaust writing from World War 2 until the present day. My first monograph, "Modernism and Theology: Rainer Maria Rilke, T. S. Eliot, Czesław Miłosz" (Palgrave Macmillan 2021), is the first book-length study to examine the interface between literary and theological modernisms. It provides a comprehensive account of literary responses to the modernist crisis in theology from a transnational and interdenominational perspective. It offers a cultural history of the period, considering a wide range of literary and historical sources, including novels, drama, poetry, literary criticism, encyclicals, theological and philosophical treatises, periodical publications, and wartime propaganda. By contextualising literary modernism within the cultural, religious, and political landscape, the book reveals fundamental yet largely forgotten connections between literary and theological modernisms. My research has been published in 'Modernism/modernity', 'Comparative Critical Studies', 'Translation Studies', and other leading journals. In 2020, I won the Martha Cheung Award for Best English Article in Translation Studies by an Early Career Scholar funded by the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, for my article on the translations of Jan Karski's 'Story of a Secret State' (published in 'Translation Studies', 11.3). I welcome PhD applications in the following areas: • modernism, twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature • comparative literature • twentieth-century book history and print culture • Holocaust writing • literature and religion • literary translation

Qualifications

  • PhD in English and Comparative Literary Studies University of Warwick,

Appointments

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  • Ethics Officer, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (1/2025 - 9/2025)

  • Athena Swan Lead (Bronze Award), Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (2019 - 2023)

  • Director of Education, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (1/2022 - 4/2022)

  • Senior Lecturer in Literature, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (10/2021 - present)

  • Director of Literature, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (2021 - 2022)

  • Departmental Disability Liaison Officer, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (2020 - 2021)

  • Lecturer in Literature, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, ºÚÁÏÍø (1/1/2019 - 30/9/2021)

Other academic

  • Thomas Brown Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, Trinity College Dublin (2017 - 2018)

  • Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Trinity Long Room Hub: Arts and Humanities Research Institute, Trinity College Dublin (2016 - 2017)

  • Early Career Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick (2015 - 2016)

Research and professional activities

Research interests

modernism

Key words: modernist literature and culture
Open to supervise

comparative literature

Key words: world literature
Open to supervise

literature and history

Key words: cultural and intellectual history
Open to supervise

Holocaust writing

Key words: Holocaust testimony, literature and trauma
Open to supervise

literature and religion

Key words: literature and theology
Open to supervise

literary translation

Key words: translation studies
Open to supervise

twentieth-century poetry

Key words: poetry and poetics
Open to supervise

WW1 and WW2 in literature

Key words: war and conflict in literature
Open to supervise

Conferences and presentations

Silence, Censorship, Misrepresentation: The Publishing History of Calek Perechodnik’s Memoir

The Violence of Silence: Overlooked Holocaust Histories, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 23/1/2026

‘Lest We Forget’: The Holocaust, Cultural Diplomacy, and Translation Politics in the Polish People’s Republic (1947-1989)

11th European Society for Translation Studies (EST) Congress, Leeds, United Kingdom, 2/7/2025

Translation and Publishing in Times of War: Tracing the Textual History of Early Holocaust Testimonies

Holocaust Testimony and Translation Research Seminar, Colchester, United Kingdom, 13/3/2025

Translation in Times of Conflict: Politics, Propaganda, and Polish-English Translation in Wartime Britain

MLA International Symposium, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2/6/2022

Translating Occupied Poland

European Literatures of Military Occupation 1938-1955, Loveno di Menaggio, Italy, 5/4/2022

Publications

Journal articles (9)

Rzepa, J., (2024). . Konteksty Kultury. 21 (1), 18-22

Rzepa, J., (2021). . The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. 29 (1), 70-88

Rzepa, J., (2020). . The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. 28 (2020) (1), 190-210

Rzepa, J., (2019). . Modernism/modernity. 26 (2), 329-350

Rzepa, J., (2019). . Comparative Critical Studies. 16 (2-3), 217-235

Rzepa, J., (2018). . Translation Studies. 11 (3), 315-332

Rzepa, J., (2018). . Konteksty Kultury. 15 (Special Issue), 41-60

Rzepa, J., (2016). . Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal. 3 (2), 241-246

Rzepa, J., (2012). Polish Literature in English Translation 1999-2009. Przekladaniec. A Journal of Translation Studies. 24, 263-290

Books (1)

Rzepa, J., (2021). . Palgrave Macmillan. 3030615294. 9783030615291

Book chapters (2)

Rzepa, J., (2024). . In: European Literatures of Military Occupation: Shared Experience, Shifting Boundaries, and Aesthetic Affections. Editors: Buschmeier, M. and Glesener, JE., . Leuven University Press. 261- 282. 9789462704077

Rzepa, J., (2017). . In: Milton in Translation: Theory and Practice. Editors: Duran, A., Issa, I. and Olson, J., . Oxford University Press. 349- 363. 0198754825. 9780198754824

Other (1)

Rzepa, J., (2023).Czesław Miłosz: what the Polish poet tells us about the ‘westsplaining’ of eastern and central Europe. The Conversation

Contact

joanna.rzepa@essex.ac.uk

Location:

5NW.4.9, Colchester Campus

Academic support hours:

by appointment

More about me
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