Irena Avsenik Nabergoj

Irena Avsenik Nabergoj is a research fellow and a full professor of religious studies and of the anthropology of religion at the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Theology)’s Institute of the Bible, Judaism and Early Christianity; a research fellow at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts’ Research Centre’s Institute of Cultural History; and a full professor of literature at the University of Nova Gorica’s Faculty of Humanities and of Slovenian literature at the University of Maribor’s Faculty of Arts. She earned a PhD degree in literary studies at the Faculty of Arts in 2004 and a further one in theology (in Bible and Judaism studies) at the Ljubljana University’s Faculty of Theology in 2015. She has given lectures at a number of universities and scientific research associations in Europe, USA and Canada, including: the universities of Udine, of Verona and of Calabria, Italy; Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic; University of Iaş, Romania; University of Toulon, France; the universities of Klagenfurt and of Graz, Austria (2015); Umeå University, Sweden; University of Aberdeen, Scotland; University of Zürich, Switzerland; University of Gdansk, Poland; the universities of Mainz and of Hamburg, Germany. As a member of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), she has lectured in Philadelphia (in 2006, 2009, 2020, 2021), New York (in 2022), Chicago (in 2007, 2014), San Francisco (in 2008, 2017), Seattle (in 2012), Boston (in 2013), Vancouver (in 2015) and Austin (in 2016). She has given a significant number of lectures at the International Medieval Congresses organised yearly by the University of Leeds, England (i.e., in 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022). In her research, she mainly focuses on Slovenian and comparative literature, the Bible and Judaism. She has published, in Slovenia and internationally, around one hundred research papers and fourteen scholarly monographs. As a visiting researcher, she has spent ten significant periods of time at the University of Cambridge. She received the Slovenian national Zois Distinction for a vital contribution to literary studies in 2009, and was also distinguished by having being elected in 2015 a full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Class I – the Humanities.

Irena Svetek

Irena Svetek (1975) holds a doctorate from the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Arts. Her first novel Close Up (Od blizu) won her the 2004 Best Debut Award of the Slovenian Book Fair and a nomination for the Kresnik Award for best novel

of the year. She is also author of the novels Seventh Wave (Sedmi val, 2011) and Go to Sleep, My Child, Go to Sleep (Zaspi, mala moja, zaspi, 2014). In recent years she has been mostly scriptwriting and has written the screenplays for numerous films, TV series and programmes. In 2021 she published the first in her series of psychological crime novels Little Red Riding Hood (Rdeča kapica). The novel became a best-seller and is being made into a TV series. White Wolf is the second novel of the series and a TV adaptation is also forthcoming.

Ivan Esenko

Ivan is a writer, photographer, conservationist and beekeep- er. Since his youth he has been a devoted naturalist, focusing especially on the study of fauna and its relevance for garden ecology. on these topics he has written a number of popular and professional articles. His published work includes several books on garden ecology. He is also a keen photographer, specializing in animal portraiture.

Iztok Sitar

Iztok Sitar (1962) is a comic artist, illustrator, cartoonist, writer and comic art theorist, and curator. He has published fifteen comic albums of different genres, from the erotic graphic novella Sperm and Blood (1990) to the collection of love stories Freaks Love Differently (2014). His books hold a mirror to Slovenian politics, church, and society in general: fascism, neo-Nazism, chauvinism, racism, xenophobia and homophobia are the topics Sitar has problematised throughout his career. He is one of Slovenian’s most lucid comic art historians and theorists. In 2007, he published the fundamental monograph The History of Slovenian Comics (1927–2007).

Jana Drašler Milovanović

Jana Drašler Milovanović (1976) is anthropologist working at the intersection of NGO sector, non-fiction creative writing, and field research. Her research interests include writing about place, history, memoir, borders and migration, as well as itinerant performative communities such as circus, world fairs, and sideshows. She is also a coordinator of Migrantour Slovenia, supporting migrants to become intercultural guides in urban and rural environments.

Jane Chapman

Jane Chapman is Award winning illustrator. She has illustrated of over one hundred books for children. Working as both Jane Chapman and under her pseudonym Jack Tickle, she has had more than 75 titles published in more than 20 countries. She studied illustration at Brighton University. Jane has been writing and illustrating picture books for almost thirty years and has produced many best-selling and award-winning titles. She lives with her family in Dorset, England.

Janez Bogataj

Janez Bogataj is Professor of ethnology and one of the greatest connoisseurs and promoters of Slovenian cultural heritage. With his cookery book, he introduces us to the colourful world of culinary dishes typical of places at the crossroads of the mediterranean, the alps, the Pannonian Plain and the Balkans. In it, twenty-five dishes – as many as the letters of the Slovenian alphabet are presented, along with their history and, of course, recipes!

Jedrt Maležič

Jedrt Maležič (1979) is a writer and a literary trans- lator from English and French. Her first collection of short stories Težkomentalci (Heavymentals), published in 2016 and shortlisted for the best debut award, has opened and demystified the topic of stay- ing in a psychiatric hospital as a totalitarian institu- tion in the 21st century. The following book, Bojne barve (War Paint), shortlisted for the Novo Mesto Award, discusses the topic of several different LGBT entities and their troubles in coming out in a closed or hostile society. In 2018, she published her first novel Vija vaja ven (Eeny, meenie, mynie, moe), which tackles the subject of dangerous new age mentality and spiritual cults. Napol morilke (Almost Murderers, 2021) is her historic novel about women refugees in the mid-war period.

Jela Krečič

Jela Krečič Žižek (1979) is a Slovenian journalist, columnist and philosopher. She writes for the largest national daily Delo, where she notably published an exclusive interview with Julian As- sange in 2013. Her philosophical research focuses on films, TV series and aesthetics, and she has conducted several studies on these topics. She has also co-edited a number of anthologies on contemporary TV series and on German Amer- ican film director Ernst Lubitsch. One of her essays was published in the English anthology Lubitsch Can’t Wait (Columbia University Press, 2014). None Like Her (Ni druge, 2015), her literary debut, sold out quickly after publication and was very well received in the media. Her second novel The Book of Others (Knjiga drugih) was published in 2018.

Jernej Habjan

Jernej Habjan (1979) is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He has had fellowships at Princeton University, the University of Munich, and at the IFK International Research Center for Cultural Studies. In his research, he focuses on the conceptions of literature in contemporary critical theory, world literature studies, and speech-act theory.