Zorica Bečanović Nikolić - Biography#

Zorica Bečanović Nikolić first obtained two BA diplomas in English Language and Literature, and in Comparative Literature at the University of Belgrade (1988). She obtained her MPhil diploma Comparative Literature in 1998, with the thesis "Paul Ricoeur's Theory of Narrative" and her PhD in Comparative Literature, with the thesis "Conflict of Interpretations in the Reception of Shakespeare's History Plays in the Twentieth Century" in 2005. After her undergraduate studies, she started working for the audio-visual media as a free-lance journalist and attended the BBC Broadcasters Seminar, sponsored by the British Council in 1991. From 1992 - 1995 she worked as a media advisor for the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Along with these jobs, she wrote literary criticism, radio drama, and translated philosophy and literary criticism from English and French (a selection of references is given in the attached longer CV). After her first engagement at the University of Belgrade (in 1996) she devoted all her publications to Shakespeare studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, comparative studies of the Renaissance in Europe, comparative studies of European literatures and cultures. Her major publication in the field of literary and philosophical theory is the monograph Hermeneutika i poetika (Hermeneutics and Poetics. Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics and Narrative Theory; Belgrade: Geopoetika 1998, pp.232). Zorica Bečanović Nikolić’s major publications in the field of Shakespeare studies are Šekspir iza ogledala (Shakespeare through the Looking Glass. Conflict of Interpretations in the Reception of Shakespeare’s History Plays in the Twentieth Century; Belgrade: Geopoetika 2007, pp.504) and U traganju za Šekspirom. (Looking for Shakespeare. General Introduction to Shakespeare; Belgrade: Dosije 2013). In 1999 - 2001 she was Visiting Researcher at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, where she researched parallels in William Shakespeare’s and Lope de Vega’s history plays. In 2009 she was awarded the British Academy Visiting Research Fellowship for the project Shakespeare our Collocutor. Dialogues with Shakespeare in the Balkans. Between 2011 and 2016 Zorica Bečanović Nikolić organized several Shakespearean events featuring visits, lectures and master classes of the major Shakespeare scholars of our time: Stephen Greenblatt, Stanley Wells, Ewan Fernie, Paul Edmondson and Richard Wilson, and took active academic part in the public promotion of Shakespeare and his works by her own lectures as well.



Along the years, from 2007 to 2019, she was invited to give lectures at the University of Regensburg, University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, University College London (see a selection of lectures given in the longer CV) as well as at the public venues in Barcelona and Madrid (Caixa Forum). She is one of the authors of the book of essays La Construcción estética de Europa (Granada: Comares 2014). Together with Adrijana Marčetić and Vesna Elez, she edited the collection of essays Komparativna književnost: teorija, tumačenja, perspektive (Encompassing Comparative Literature: Theory, Interpretation, Perspectives, Belgrade: Filološki fakultet, 2015). Together with Biljana Dojčinović and Aleksandra Vraneš she edited the collection of essays Knjiženstvo. Teorija i istorija ženske književnosti na srpskom jeziku do 1915. (Knjiženstvo. Theory and History of Women’s Literature in Serbian until 1915, Belgrade Filološki fakultet, 2015). She has written two entries for the Stanford Global Shakespeare Encyclopedia, edited by Patricia Parker. Her current work is centered upon the narrative identity in Shakespeare and Montaigne and upon the writings and the translations of Shakespeare’s works by Laza Kostić, the major poet and intellectual of the Serbian Romanticism. The third line of her current research is connected to the project entitled Citizen Shakespeare, initiated by Professor Ewan Fernie, Chair of Shakespeare Studies and Fellow at Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, University of Birmingham. She is a Member of the Council of the Centre for British Studies, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade.