Category: Academia

A Little More Conversation… A Little More Action, too!

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The main reason why I didn’t post an annual academic update late last year was hidden in various obligations and deadlines of this nature that extended into 2026. More precisely, preparing one article for peer review until mid-January and a research proposal for the upcoming ESSE conference in Spain that was due mere two weeks later. So, now I’m happy to report that both tasks were done on time and that I’m pretty satisfied with how they turned out.

One other big thing academic-wise that happened is the publishing of the volume “Semiotic Approaches to Cultural Interactions, Images and Texts” (by Peter Lang, no less) which finally saw the light of day at the end of 2025, and to which I had the honour and pleasure of contributing a chapter on metonymy in cinema. Specifically, in science fiction pillars such as 2001 and Blade Runner/2049. Of course, my deep gratitude goes to the editors Ionela Neagu and Crina Herţeg for this great opportunity. The volume found its way from Romania to here earlier this year, and you can see how it looks like on the photos below (a little foretaste, shall we say?)

The upcoming conference in Spain came somewhat as a surprise to me, but when my former professor and PhD mentor Mario Brdar reached out with an invitation to join a panel on metaphor and metonymy in artistic expressions, the creativity inside was stirred and I immediately started brainstorming about certain research venues and alleys I could lead my mind into. I won’t reveal the winning idea, but I’ll give you a hint instead: Chekhov’s gun!

A few weeks ago I got the official confirmation of the acceptance of my talk proposal, so now it’s time again for some “academic action”. This and the opportunity to see my dear colleagues and again present alongside some of the absolute legends in the field (Brdar, Panther, Thornburg, etc.) fills me with oceans of excitement, so much so that I’d just like to staple every sentence here with an exclamation mark!

Here’s to a promising 2026!

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2024 Recap: What a year!

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It‘s an almost impossible task to summarize the past year in just a few lines, but I feel that I should at least emphasize the challenging but stellar work I‘ve done in the academia:
– presented at three conferences in France (one on Giger and another one on Lovecraft, no less!)
– researched intriguing representations of multimodal figurativity in John Carpenter‘s “In the Mouth of Madness“ and Drew Goddard‘s “The Cabin in the Woods“
– prepared a couple of articles for peer review/publication
– became a member of AFLiCo – French Association for Cognitive Lingustics
– last but not least, acquired new acquaintances among fellow researchers

I‘ve also caught up with professor Zoltán Kövecses, who was a plenary speaker at the conference here in Lyon, and years ago one of my professors during the PhD studies in Croatia. Indulging in passionate conversations about genre movies and dark art with esteemed colleagues such as professors Gilles Menegaldo (who invited me to present at the incredible “H.P. Lovecraft and the Sciences“ conference in Poitiers), and Christopher Robinson has been nothing short of spectacular, and an especially lovely addition to these amazing encounters has been Kathy Lenze, an artist and animal rights activist who was simply like a breath of fresh air and I’m truly hoping our paths cross again soon. With new prospects on the horizons, I‘ve finished the year extremely grateful and inspired, all in the serenity of my home.

One of the other highlights has been traveling with my mom to Paris (hours spent at the Louvre, sightseeing and eating delicious vegan food!), with my husband to Amsterdam (what a lovely weekend getaway that was!), and with my best friend to the Weekend of Hell convention in Germany (see below). Animal rights activism deserves a bunch of special posts, but for now I‘ll say that this year I‘ve also been organizing/coorganizing a lot of events and actions and have come to an even deeper understanding of the speciesist bonds that tie and hide the need for animal liberation, and how to make this need truly apparent in our society. As with each year that passes, I hope for health of my loved ones and myself, serenity and success in all fields. And of course, that we get closer to a vegan world in which all animals are safe! God willing!

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Walk Like an Academic: Summary of my 2023 academic year

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Next to my animal rights activism, which has flourished during my time here in Lyon, I have also nurtured my path in academia in the past year. What follows is a very short summary of what I‘ve been up to academically:

– I‘m very happy to announce that I‘ve been published in Anglica Wratislaviensia with my paper „Lost in Time? The Socialist Modernist Monuments of the Former Yugoslavia and Their Shifting Conceptualization“, and that the physical copy found its way to me just a few weeks ago, thanks to my great and caring editor Michał Szawerna. Peer review was a wonderful experience and it was, as always, lovely to receive praise and positive comments about my research (never gets old!)

The paper and the entire special edition on Multimodality is available for your reading pleasure here and here.

– Also, two separate abstracts that I wrote quite hastily (nothing like a good ole‘ deadline!) both got accepted to two conferences next year in France. One of them is on cognitive linguistics and it‘s happening right here in Lyon. Exciting! This was also the first time that an abstract is reviewed in a way that the author has access to the comments by peer reviewers, which was quite thrilling to read (and even graded! Awesome).

– I think I never actually posted some of my previous academic work. I‘m especially proud of these two:

Figurative representation of death in the Italian comic book Dylan Dog

The Otherness and the Consumer: External and internal horror as rhetorical framing devices on the silver screen and in real time

Next year will hopefully be marked by great conference papers and presentations, as well as possibilities for publishing. Most of all, it‘s gonna be a blast to return to Giger and John Carpenter, respectively (the abstracts are about their work). More on that in the year to come. Thanks for reading!