On May 10, 2023, the Department of English Philology organized a webinar on the topic ‘Cultural Border Crossings through Life Narratives’ for students of bachelor’s and master’s degrees of the study program “English Language and Literature”, which, at the invitation of Associate Professor Iryna Dumchak, was held by the professor of English and American literatures at the Arctic University of Norway (the University of Tromsø) Laura Castor. Doctor of Philology, Professor Yakiv Bystrov moderated the event. In a lively question-and-answer discussion with students, Professor Laura Castor spoke not only about her own experience of immigrating from the North American continent to Norway in the 1990s, but also touched upon current issues of today, which mainly related to the reasons why writers write life narratives through their own traumatic experience, gender identity, adaptation of emigrants to a new language and culture. The audience was very interested in the lecturer’s story about the translation of the book ‘Lucky Breaks’ by Yevgenia Belorusets, a Ukrainian artist, journalist, photographer, translator, in which the plot lines revolve around traumatic events in Ukraine, embodied in fragments of conversations, life experiences and everyday situations. During the event, an opinion was expressed about further cooperation with the Arctic University of Norway in terms of academic exchange programs of students and teachers.
