Editor-in-Chief: Alexandre Desbiens-Brassard

I am what my compatriots would call a Blueberry, because I come from a region of Quebec where they cultivate blueberries. My compatriots are literal like that, which might be why I like literature. I completed a BA in Études anglaises et interculturelles in late 2011 and a MA in Litérature canadienne comparée in 2015, both at the Université de Sherbrooke, which was on a hill but was neither shiny nor a city. My MA thesis was titled “‘They’re Coming!’ Invasion and Paranoia in Post-World-War-Two Literature in Quebec and the United States by Oliver Lange, Orson Scott Card, Mary Jane Engh, Paul Chamberland, Hubert Aquin and Claude Jasmin.” Nowadays, I am doing a PhD in Comparative Literature at Western University. This year, as well as being Editor-in-Chief of The Scattered Pelican, I am beginning the redaction of my doctoral thesis for which I have obtained grants from both FRQSC and the SSHRC. In this thesis, I will explore monsters as representations of late capitalism in selected North American works of contemporary speculative fiction. When I am not working, I am a comic-book reader, a tabletop role player and, most importantly, a cat-dad.

Deputy Editor: Panxin Zhong

I am a Master’s student in Comparative Literature at Western University. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in English (specialized in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language) and Russian in Sun Yat-sen University in China. My research interests include modern Chinese Literature, especially the works of Eileen Chang, Saomao, Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang. I am also interested in Chinese American Literature and Immigration Studies. In my spare time, I like listening to music and watching movies. I love animals, nature and travelling.

Copy Editor: Jessica Marino

Jessica Paola Marino is a second-year Master’s student in the Comparative Literature Program at Western University. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in German Studies and Spanish at York University, where she also was involved with the department’s student literary magazine called Entre Voczes. Her academic interests focus on German and Latin American literature, particularly in relation to traumatic historical events, and the use of monuments and museums as an expression of collective memory. Her involvement with The Scattered Pelican comes from her desire to take part in showcasing the academic work of students and colleagues in the field of Comparative Literature and sharing them with the rest of the academic world. She aspires to obtain her PhD and teach German and Spanish Literatures in the near future.

Copy Editor: Helga Ruppe

Helga is a second-year PhD student at Western University. She earned her first Bachelor’s degree in German Language and Literature at the same institution and went on to earn a Master’s degree in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. More recently, she returned to Western to earn a second Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts. Fascinated with all things medieval, she is studying the scientific writings of the twelfth century abbess, Saint Hildegard of Bingen. She is an inveterate language junkie, and knows nine languages, five of them dead. Helga lives in a wilderness in the middle of the city with her husband, four children, and two cats.

Reviews Editor: Busra Copuroglu

Busra Copuroglu is a first year PhD student in Comparative Literature at Western University. She completed her BA in French Language and Literature at Istanbul University and her MA at Yeditepe Istanbul in Istanbul. She completed her MA thesis exploring the relationship between city and nostalgia in the works of Mircea Cărtărescu, Milan Kundera and Orhan Pamuk. Her research interests include the modern Turkish and European novel, critical theory, modernism(s), nostalgia and phenomenology with a focus on the phenomenology of space. Aside from academia she worked in the Turkish art industry as executive assistant where she represented artists, organizing the PR of their exhibitions and the sale of their works. She also worked as a free-lance contributor to various art magazines, publishing her interviews in both national and international magazines. As a personal project, she completed a screenwriting workshop at the New York Film Academy. She also enjoys binge-watching TV series and movies.

Web Editor: Alexandra Irimia

Alexandra Irimia is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Western University. While completing a BA in Political Science, she majored in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature and minored in French Studies at the University of Bucharest. After studying in Bucharest and at Charles University in Prague for her MA dissertation on blindness in literature, she is currently aiming to develop a theoretical approach to empty signifiers in literature and contemporary arts. Other research fields of her interest are film and photography studies, which hint at a more general preference for the infinite play of intermediality. Alexandra’s work revolves around formal paradoxes of representation, seeking to explore the many relations that can be established between texts and images, with a particular emphasis on the topics of the figure, figurability, and their negative ontological regimes. Occasionally, she ventures into the troubled waters of translation.