{"id":6698,"date":"2025-07-12T15:17:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T20:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=6698"},"modified":"2025-07-12T15:17:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T20:17:37","slug":"serbian-scholar-tells-interviewer-updike-remains-relevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2025\/07\/12\/serbian-scholar-tells-interviewer-updike-remains-relevant\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbian scholar tells interviewer Updike remains relevant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ALA, Chicago, 2022<\/p><\/div>\n

John Updike Society board member Biljana Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 was recently interviewed by Charles Carlini of Casa Carlini publishing, who wished to confront the difficult questions underlying why Updike seems less read these days. “Did the sheer brilliance of his style mask a certain thematic narrowness? Were his lush sentences and psychological insights ultimately confined to the worldview of a privileged few? Such questions have sparked fresh debate about his rightful place in the literary canon.<\/p>\n

“One of the sharpest voices in this conversation is Biljana Doj\u010dinovi\u0107<\/a>, a scholar whose work pushes beyond easy categories. A professor of literary studies with expertise in Anglo-American modernism, Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 brings a distinctly transnational lens to Updike\u2019s fiction, interrogating how his narratives handle (or mishandle) issues of gender, power, and identity. Rather than slotting him neatly into the roles of either misunderstood genius or emblem of patriarchal excess, she urges readers to sit with the contradictions\u2014those moments where Updike is most dazzling, and most troubling.”<\/p>\n

Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 cautioned, “When it comes to biases, we need to be careful not to confuse the author with his characters, nor with the assumptions and prejudices we ourselves bring to the reading experience.”<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s no coincidence that all great literary works are, in some way, critical of the times they depict,” Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 said. “When a writer speaks from a certain distance, it creates space for us to reflect on what we\u2019re reading. In the modernist style, there\u2019s no guiding authorial voice\u2014it\u2019s up to us to decide what\u2019s right or wrong. That can be challenging; irony, for instance, is often missed. And when that happens, the meaning of a work can be lost entirely.”<\/p>\n

Asked how readers should “reconcile historical context with present-day critiques,” Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 responded, “When we read literature from earlier periods\u2014or even from different cultures\u2014we need to stay mindful of the contextual differences. More than that, we should make an effort to learn about those contexts. Take slang, for example\u2014it\u2019s clear we shouldn\u2019t apply contemporary meanings to a title like The Turn of the Screw<\/em> by Henry James. And yet, we often impose our present-day values and interpretations onto works from the past or from unfamiliar cultures. That\u2019s where many misunderstandings begin.”<\/p>\n

Read the whole interview.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Updike Society board member Biljana Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 was recently interviewed by Charles Carlini of Casa Carlini publishing, who wished to confront the difficult questions underlying why Updike seems less read these days. “Did the sheer brilliance of his style mask … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-scholarship-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6700,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions\/6700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}