Isabell Serafin-Krause

Isabell Serafin-Krause holds degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing from Goddard College and Vermont College. Her self-published hybrid work of fiction and nonfiction, OSTRACA has been lauded by David Rocklin, author of The Night Language and The Luminist, and praised by New York Times best-selling novelist, Marcy Dermansky. Excerpts of Isabell's fiction have been published in Fjords Review and PANK Magazine. Raised in Oregon, she has lived in Poland, Italy, South Africa, Vietnam, Bali, and Germany.

Current art and/or research interest:

The aim of my research is to explore representations of the traumatic experience within literature and film. I am particularly interested in the films of the late 1950s Rive Gauche period, a cinematic movement in Paris that preceded the French New Wave. The proposed films of focus are Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Last Year at Marienbad. Each film deals specifically with trauma and memory.

The centerpiece of my literary research is L’ecriture Feminine, a genre coined by literary theorist Hélène Cixous in her 1975 essay The Laugh of the Medusa. My focus will be on Cixous’ most evocative feminine analogy, which likens writing to the act of birth. In this philosophy, the writer hypothesizes that women can undergo transformations of identity and consciousness when they re-visit that which traumatized and thereby re-contextualize the wound through the act of writing. By returning to what Jacques Derrida termed the “scar” and writing of the psychic injury, the female might heal from the original wound, leading to a soul and artistic liberation. This examination of French feminist literature will include the following works: Cixous’ Stigmata: Examining Texts, The Day I Wasn’t There, and Marguerite Duras’ The Lover and The Ravishing of Lol Stein.

Overarching praxis statement:

A writer primarily of fiction, my influences have been postmodern French feminist literature. The works of Helene Cixous and Marguerite Duras were seminal influences in my writing life. I am interested in storylines that examine female narratives. My creative work has been influenced by the study of dissociative states and fragmented memories.

More about the artist: HERE