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Sanja Perovic

Professor Sanja Perovic

Professor of French Literature and Cultural History

Research interests

  • History
  • Languages

Biography

Sanja Perovic obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford University. She taught at the University of Chicago as a Harper Fellow and in the French Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago before coming to King’s in 2008.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

  • Eighteenth-century Literature and Culture
  • French Revolution
  • Representations and histories of time from the eighteenth century to the present
  • Histories of Translation

Sanja’s research focuses on the long eighteenth century in France, with publications covering the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. She also has broader interests in the politics and representation of time from the early modern period to the present. Her publications include The Calendar in Revolutionary France: Perceptions of Time in Literature, Culture, Politics (CUP, 2012) and Performance Art and Revolution: Stuart Brisley’s Cuts in Time (2023), on the English multi-media artist Stuart Brisley, widely hailed as a ground-breaking figure in British performance art.

Sanja Perovic is also PI of the AHRC-funded Radical Translations Project, which seeks to uncover the mobility of revolutionary language – tracking not only what it said, but how it travelled, where it went and what it became.

She welcomes students interested in any aspect of the interdisciplinary eighteenth century; the histories and imaginaries of revolution; and/or aesthetics and politics of time. For more details, please see her full research profile.

Teaching

Sanja teaches a variety of modules in the Department of French and in the Interdisciplinary Eighteenth-Century MA programme. These include an MA module on 'Rights before Human Rights: Eighteenth-Century Theories and Representations', sections of the MA core course in Critical Theory and a variety of undergraduate modules including Shadows of Enlightenment and (whenever possible) The French Revolution Effect (with Dr. Rosa Mucignat)

Expertise and Public Engagement

  • From 2012-2020, Co-Director of the Centre for Enlightenment Studies at King's
  • From 2013-2022, informal conversations/collaborations with British multi-media and performance artist Stuart Brisley and his frequent collaborator Maya Balcioglu on revolutionary time. This was instigated by an initial collaboration with the fiction writer Tony White (Creative-Entrepreneur-in-Residence 2013/14). These collaborations resulted in several publications, new fiction by White, a new performance by Brisley, and public talks: Kunsthal Aarhus (2014); Oxford Modern Art (2014); MAC Belfast(2015); Raven Row (2017)
  • From 2019: worked with translator Cristina Viti, Dr. Rosa Mucignat and students at KCL, Toulouse, Bordeaux and University of Bicocca-Milan to collaboratively translate revolutionary-era manifestos and theatre
  • From 2015: collaboration with the dramaturge Simon Hatab and King’s students to create a series of performances and a film on the theme Performing Utopia, based on texts by the French revolutionary playwright Sylvain Maréchal
  • Radio appearances: BBC Radio Four ‘On Our Time’ on Olympe de Gouges; BBC Radio 3 on Beaumarchais for broadcast of Rossini's Barber of Seville (September 17, 2016); Resonance FM
  • Public Talks on various aspects of revolutionary time at Parasol Gallery (2012), Camden Arts Centre (2015), Glyndebourne Opera (2016)

    Research

    Translation
    Language and Translation Studies

    Promoting a vibrant research culture to study language and translation practices is at the heart of this forum.

    Activist in Residence
    The Activist-in-Residence Scheme

    Connecting researchers and activists to address societal problems.

    Project status: Ongoing

    Napoleone_entra_a_Milano_Bagetti.width-800
    Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy (1789-1815)

    Understanding how a transnational revolutionary idiom was adapted, resisted or rejected in the effort to create new political tools for action.

    Project status: Completed

    News

    Faculty of Arts & Humanities launches innovative Activist-in-Residence Scheme

    A new initiative run by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities seeks to explore mutually beneficial connections between activism and academic research.

    Activist-in-Residence Scheme

    The Origins of the word ‘numpty' can be traced back 200 years earlier than previously thought

    The origins of the word ‘numpty’, a popular term of mild abuse, have been traced back to 1794, backdating its current recorded appearance in the OED by almost...

    Play Bill

    Departments of French and Comparative Literature at King's awarded £1M grant

    A team led by Dr Sanja Perovic from the Department of French has been awarded a circa £1M AHRC Standard Grant to fund a research programme involving the...

    Image: King's College London, Strand Campus

    Events

    08DecPerformance art and revolution book launch thumb

    Performance art and revolution: Stuart Brisley's Cuts in Time Book Launch

    Join us for Sanja's latest book launch - 8 December

    Please note: this event has passed.

    22FebBy Peter von Hess, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5552937

    1821: The Migration of Revolutionary Ideas (Pt 2)

    Part two of panel discussions focusing on outbreaks of revolution during the Ottoman Empire

    Please note: this event has passed.

    02DecVWBexteriorwithbike

    Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy

    Join Dr Rosa Mucignat and Dr Sanja Perovic at the Department of French research seminar

    Please note: this event has passed.

      Research

      Translation
      Language and Translation Studies

      Promoting a vibrant research culture to study language and translation practices is at the heart of this forum.

      Activist in Residence
      The Activist-in-Residence Scheme

      Connecting researchers and activists to address societal problems.

      Project status: Ongoing

      Napoleone_entra_a_Milano_Bagetti.width-800
      Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy (1789-1815)

      Understanding how a transnational revolutionary idiom was adapted, resisted or rejected in the effort to create new political tools for action.

      Project status: Completed

      News

      Faculty of Arts & Humanities launches innovative Activist-in-Residence Scheme

      A new initiative run by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities seeks to explore mutually beneficial connections between activism and academic research.

      Activist-in-Residence Scheme

      The Origins of the word ‘numpty' can be traced back 200 years earlier than previously thought

      The origins of the word ‘numpty’, a popular term of mild abuse, have been traced back to 1794, backdating its current recorded appearance in the OED by almost...

      Play Bill

      Departments of French and Comparative Literature at King's awarded £1M grant

      A team led by Dr Sanja Perovic from the Department of French has been awarded a circa £1M AHRC Standard Grant to fund a research programme involving the...

      Image: King's College London, Strand Campus

      Events

      08DecPerformance art and revolution book launch thumb

      Performance art and revolution: Stuart Brisley's Cuts in Time Book Launch

      Join us for Sanja's latest book launch - 8 December

      Please note: this event has passed.

      22FebBy Peter von Hess, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5552937

      1821: The Migration of Revolutionary Ideas (Pt 2)

      Part two of panel discussions focusing on outbreaks of revolution during the Ottoman Empire

      Please note: this event has passed.

      02DecVWBexteriorwithbike

      Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy

      Join Dr Rosa Mucignat and Dr Sanja Perovic at the Department of French research seminar

      Please note: this event has passed.