Tamara Hundorova

Tamara Ivanivna Hundorova (Ukrainian: Гундорова Тамара Іванівна; born 17 July 1955, Klimivka, Karlivka Raion, Poltava Oblast) is a Ukrainian literary critic, culturologist and writer.

She is a professor and head of the Theory of Literature Department at the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and a professor and dean at the Ukrainian Free University.

Hundorova was born on 17 July 1955 in Klimivka, a village in Poltava Oblast in Ukraine.

She graduated from the Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature at Kyiv University, and attended postgraduate studies at the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Hundorova started working at the Institute of Literature at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1981.

In September 1990, she, along with Vira Ageyeva, and Natalka Shumylo were invited by Solomiia Pavlychko, a philosophy professor at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy to launch an initiative to found women's studies in Ukraine.

They created the "Feminist Seminar" at the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences.

It was the first time the methodology of feminist analysis and gender criticism was introduced in the country.

These same women established a feminist section in the academic journal Slovo i Chas (Word and Time) and began publishing works such her article Femina Melancholica: Sex and Culture.

The work of these scholars inspired other academics throughout Ukraine to establish women's and gender studies programs.

Her work has also been published in the collections Постмодернизм в славянских литературах, Стус як текст, ''Ukraine in the 1990-s.

Hundorova was an intern at Monash University (Australia) between 1991 and 1992.

Proceeding of the First Conference of the Ukraine Studies Association of Australia (Melbourne, 1992), and From Sovietology to Postcoloniality'' (Stockholm, 2007).

She was the author of chapters in Історії української літератури ХХ ст. (English: History of Ukrainian Literature of the 20th Century) (K., 1993).

Reviews of Hundorova's works have been published in the magazines "Critique" (Ukrainian: Критика), "Mirror Weekly", "", "", "", "Slavia – Casopis pro slovanskou filologii", "Journal of Ukrainian Studies", "Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch", "Zeitschrift fur Slavische Philologie", and "Canadian Slavonic Papers".

She taught at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy from 1994 to 1997 and the University of Toronto in Canada, in 1999.

She also worked at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in 1997, the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University in 2001, and the Slavic Research Center at Hokkaido University, Japan in 2004.

She was a Fulbright Scholar in the US for the 1998, 2009, and 2011–2012 academic years.

Hundorova's research focuses on feminism, gender studies, literary theory, postcolonial criticism, modernism and postmodernism.

In 2002, she became the head of the National Academy, Institute of Literature's department of literary theory.

In 2002, Hundorova was the vice-president of the.

She also taught the summer school of Harvard University in 2004, and the Ukrainian Free University in 2003 and 2005.

She also taught at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv from 2005 to 2010, and taught a special course at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

She has given presentations at international conferences in Ukraine and abroad, as well as lectured at universities in the United States (Yale, Columbia, Harvard), Canada (Universities of Toronto, Alberta, Manitoba), and Great Britain.

From 2005 to 2014, she was a member of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission of Ukraine, and between 2012 and 2014, she was president of the International Association for the Humanities (IAG).

She has also been a member of the editorial and advisory boards of the Journal of Ukrainian Studies,, , and HELIKON Publishing House, and has been a member of PEN Ukraine.

Hundorova has written books on modern Ukrainian literature, specifically interpreting works through postmodern, postcolonial, gender, and psychoanalytic theories.

Her works focus on the transitions in Ukraine during the early twentieth and twenty-first century.

She has written about Ukrainian postmodernism at the turn of the twenty-first century, using the phrase "post-Chernobyl library" as a metaphor, and also has written on subjects of melancholy, popular culture and kitsch.

Her work has been published in the magazines Word and Time (formerly Радянське літературознавство (Soviet Literary Studies)), Krytyka, ', ', ',, ', Acta Slavica Japonica, Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Slavia orientalis, ''Dubrovnik.

Casopis za knjizevnost i znanost, Porownania.

Komparatystyka i studia postkolonialne''.

Tamara Gundorova was awarded the in 2006.

Her book "Post-Chernobyl Library. Ukrainian Literary Postmodernism" was awarded the All-Ukrainian rating at the (nominated under "Literary Criticism and Essays"), and the book "Kitsch and Literature – Travesty" was awarded the All-Ukrainian rating at the "(nominated under "Reader – Literary Studies").

In 2009, she was a Yacyk Distinguished Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and she is the dean of the Ukrainian Free University in Munich.

On 30 May 2017, she was appointed as a member of the Scientific Committee of the by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine.