Mihaela P. Harper received her Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island, where she completed her dissertation, “Literature in Anomie: Postcommunist, Postmodern, Postapocalyptic.” Her research spans comparative and world literatures, transnationalism, cultural critique, political theory, and continental philosophy. She has presented her work at various national and international conferences, including the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA), and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA). Her current book projects examine the novels of 2023 International Booker award winner Georgi Gospodinov and postapocalypse as a literary and cinematic genre.
Since 2005, she has taught introductory, genre, survey, core curriculum and upper-division literature, as well as writing and humanities courses. In each course, she encourages students to engage in self-exploration through comparative analytical work, often in-between ancient and contemporary texts, at the crux of literature and philosophy.
Publications:
Edited Volumes
Bulgarian Literature as World Literature (co-edited with Dimitar Kambourov), Bloomsbury (2020).
Journal Articles
“Worlding in Georgi Gospodinov’s There, Where We Are Not,” Neohelicon, 50 (2023): 99–115.
“Breaking Up, Down and Out: Anomie in Georgi Gospodinov’s Natural Novel.” Slavonic and East European Review, 93.3 (2015): 429-450.
“‘Art Entices Us Upon Unknown and Deadly Paths’: An Interview with Bulgarian Writer Kalin Terziyski.” Modern Language Studies, 44.2 (Winter 2015): 32-49.
“Fabric Frontiers: Thread, Cloth, Body, Self in Latina Literature in Film.” Hispanic Review 81.2 (Spring 2013): 165-180.
“Turning To Debris: Ethics of Violence in Wilkomirski’s Fragments and Beigbeder’s Windows on the World.” Special issue of Symplokē 20.1-2 (2012): 231-244.
“Chaos as a Mode of Living in Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable.” Special issue of the Journal of Modern Literature 35.4 (Summer 2012): 151-162.
“‘An art that it takes a lifetime to learn’: Suicide and Souci de soi.” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry 7.17 (Spring 2012): 60-69.
Book Chapters
Introduction Part I “Modern Bulgarian Literature: Being in the World” in Bulgarian Literature as World Literature. Eds. Mihaela Harper and Dimitar Kambourov. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. 1-6.
“Between the Local and the Global: Aporia in Miroslav Penkov’s East of the West” in Bulgarian Literature as World Literature. Eds. Mihaela Harper and Dimitar Kambourov. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. 123-135.
“Female Body Language: Cutting, Scarring, and Becoming in HBO’s Sharp Objects.” In Female Agencies and Subjectivities in Film and Television. Eds. Digdem Sezen et al. Palgrave MacMillan, 2020. 145-163.
“‘In Agatha Christie’s Footsteps’: The Cursed Goblet and Contemporary Bulgarian Crime Fiction.” In Crime Fiction as World Literature. Eds. Louise Nilsson, David Damrosch, and Theo D’haen. Bloomsbury, 2017. 171-186.
“Drafting the Hyperreal: Ownership, Agency, Responsibility in Fantasy Sports,” co-written with Andrew J Ploeg. In Simulation in Media and Culture: Believing the Hype. Ed. Robin DeRosa. Lexington Books, 2011. 151-161.
Special Issue Editor
“Fantasy Sports” (co-edited with Andrew J Ploeg), Reconstruction 17.2 (June 2017).
Conference Proceedings
“Making Bulgarian Literature (as) World Literature,” in “Bulgarian Studies and Modern Humanities,” Studies on Language and Culture in Central and Eastern Europe (SLCCEE) vol. 49 2025, Peter Lang.
“Machines and Gardens in HBO’s Westworld,” Journal of International Scientific Publications: Language, Individual & Society 17, 142-150 (2023). https://doi.org/10.62991/LIS1996096960
Reviews
„Българистиката по света: въпроси, предизвикателства и подходи,“ отзив за конференцията „Българистиката в полето на съвременната хуманитаристика,“ Литературен Вестник 42 (27 ноември-3 декември 2024): 6. (“Bulgarian Studies Across the World: Questions, Challenges, and Approaches” review of the conference “Bulgarian Studies and the Contemporary Humanities,” Literary Newspaper 27 November-3 December 2024). https://litvestnik.com/броеве/
Work in Progress
Past Perfect/Future Canceled: Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter (under contract, Academic Studies Press, Studies in Comparative Literature and Intellectual History series, expected publication 2027)
“Transcorporeal Materiality in Blake Butler’s Ever” (article under review with Green Letters)
“Matters of Resonance: Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter” (article under review with Angelaki)
“Routes and Veins: Travel in Georgi Gospodinov’s Writing,” in Forbidden Roads: Travel as Metaphor in Contemporary Eastern European Cultures. Eds. Stiliana Milkova and Margarita Marinova. (Bloomsbury Academic, expected publication 2026).