Orsolya Petocz

Photograph © Zsolt Székelyhidi

Name: Orsolya Katalin Petőcz

Position: Postdoctoral Affiliate of the French and Italian Sections in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics

About

Dr Orsolya Katalin Petőcz is a Postdoctoral Affiliate of French and Italian at the University of Cambridge where she completed her PhD supervised by Prof Emma Wilson and Prof Robert S. C. Gordon. She explores queer testimonies across literature and the visual arts. She focuses primarily on the testimonies of survivors of World War II and studies the early texts of queer and trans theories in the context of which these testimonies emerge. Petőcz organises events in line with her research interests, most recently the conference and film premiere ‘Queer and Trans Testimonies: From the Holocaust to 2023’. Petőcz has published research articles in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Italian Studies and French Cultural Studies, as well as book chapters. Petőcz is the coeditor, with Naomi Segal, of the volume Dwelling: Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places (Palgrave Macmillan: 2024), endorsed as a ‘must-read’ by Princeton-based André Benhaïm. The book offers a bridge to her postdoctoral work related to migration studies with a focus on the stigma of promiscuity in the testimonies of Eastern European Holocaust survivors. Petőcz is currently working on a book titled Genders Ago: Monstrosity in the Long Twentieth Century, a book that elaborates on ‘queer testimony’.

Teaching and supervision

Supervisor for the MMLL Part IA Italian IT1: Texts and Context course (2022–2024)

Supervisor for the English Faculty Introduction to Italian Literature Part I, IB and II course (2022–2024)

Supervisor for the MMLL Part IB Italian IT4: Autobiography and Self-Representation in Italian Culture course (2022–2023; 2024–2025)

Supervisor for the MMLL Part II Italian IT6: Topics in Modern Italian Culture course (2024–2025)

Supervisor for the MMLL Part II Comparative CS5: The Body course (2022–2025)

I supervise dissertations for MMLL Part II and English Part IB and Part II. Please do feel free to reach out at okp20@cam.ac.uk.

Publications

Books

Petőcz, Orsolya Katalin and Naomi Segal, eds, 2024, Dwelling: Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places (Palgrave Macmillan)

Articles and Book Chapters

Petőcz, Orsolya Katalin, 2024, ‘Paul B. Preciado’s Dwelling-in-Mutation: The Show of Monstrosity’, in Dwelling: Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places, eds Orsolya Katalin Petőcz and Naomi Segal (Palgrave Macmillan)

Petőcz, Orsolya Katalin and Naomi Segal, 2024, ‘Introduction’, in Dwelling: Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places, eds Orsolya Katalin Petőcz and Naomi Segal (Palgrave Macmillan)

Petőcz, Orsolya Katalin, 2023, ‘(Re)Tracing the Queer Bodies of San Domino: In Italia sono tutti maschi (2008) and The Red Tree (2018)’ Italian Studies, Cultural Studies Issue, vol 78, no 4, 513–531 (Taylor and Francis), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00751634.2023.2275897

Jóźwiak, Karol and Orsolya Katalin Petőcz, 2023, ‘(Un)Desired Others: Eastern Europeans in Italian Post-War Cinema’, in Past and Present Intersections among Italian, Russian, Soviet and Post-Socialist Cinemas and Media, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, vol 11, no 3–4, 627–646 (Intellect), https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/jicms_00202_1

Petőcz, Orsolya Katalin, 2022 ‘Love, Grief and Violence – A Study of Camille Kouchner’s La Familia grande (2021)’, in French Cultural Studies, vol 34, no 4 (SAGE), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09571558221143492

Colloquia and organised events

Co-organiser of Queer and Trans Testimonies: From the Holocaust to 2023, 21-22 November 2023

Convener and co-organiser of the English Faculty-based Queer Cultures Colloquium

Co-convenor and co-chair of the Philosophy Faculty-based Verstehen Colloquium

For an interview with and an article about Petőcz see the magazine Index here.