Faces Behind Addenda?
Taja Kramberger, Ph. D.
Director and Project Manager of Addenda
Teacher, Author, Translator, Researcher Taja Kramberger is a historian, poet, writer, editor, researcher, and translator. In another lifetime, before the university purge in Koper, Slovenia, in 2010, she was an engaged university teacher, researcher, editor as well as a cultural/community animator. She was also tirelessly active in struggles for human and social rights. She has published around thirty books of her own and translated a further ten books by other authors from French, English, Spanish and Italian into Slovene. She founded the multilingual anthropological journal Monitor ISH in 2001. After the coup at the ISH in 2004, the journal was taken over by politically acceptable scholars and its scope was narrowed. The journal was therefore renamed Monitor ZSA: Journal of Historical, Social and Other Anthropologies in 2004. Taja Kramberger was its Editor-in-Chief until 2010, when it stopped being published due to a university purge. After having spent an intensive decade struggling for elementary human rights and democratic procedures in a Slovene camouflage democracy only to be finally wiped out by her "colleagues" in a politically orchestrated university purge, she moved to France with her husband Drago Braco Rotar in 2016. She now directs a small digital publishing house, Addenda, and teaches English. She also gives lectures and literary readings and continues her research and writing projects. RECOMPENSES: Many literary and scientific fellowships, national and international, and invitations to some 35 literary festivals worldwide. Some final-circle (shortlisted) nominations for poetry books. In Slovenia, she got the “Veronika Poetry Prize” (2006); in France, she received “Simone Landry-Femme, Poésie, Liberté” Prize (2018, ex æquo). In social sciences and humanities, two of her books were proclaimed “highest scientific achievement” by the Agency of Slovene science (2007-Historiographic Divergence; 2011-Invisible Evidences. To think “Idola Tribus,” the latter in co-authorship with Drago Braco Rotar). In 2012, she was chosen by the European reading public as the only Slovene representative at the World’s Poetry Parnassus, an accompanying cultural event of the Olympic Games in Southbank Centre in London. BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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Drago Braco Rotar, Ph. D.Retired University Professor, Researcher,
Author, Proof-reader, Translator Drago Braco Rotar is a retired university professor and researcher. He is also a renowned ex-Yugoslav and Slovene intellectual, historian of art and sociologist. He introduced the fields of semiotics, structuralism, psychoanalysis and historical anthropology to Slovenia. In his youth, he was a poet, writer and translator who won several Yugoslav prizes. In the early eighties and nineties, he conceived, founded and directed two important national-level intellectual institutions: the pioneering publishing house of integral social science and humanities translations (Studia Humanitatis), and the first private postgraduate humanities school in Slovenia – the ISH (Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis). Together with his wife and intellectual collaborator of more than twenty-five years, Taja Kramberger, he was discredited and eradicated from all visible referential corpuses. This first occurred during the coup at the ISH in 2004, when a politically servile team took over the institution. It happened again in 2010 when a brutal purge of critical intellectuals took place at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Primorska/Littoral in Koper, eliminating those who had previously helped build a new, young university on the Slovene coast with much enthusiasm and dedication. After two years of futile daily struggles in various social and cultural fields (university, literature, social rights, translation and law in corrupt courts), the couple realised that they had no future in Slovenia and moved to France. They first spent three years in a modest Paris studio, before moving to France permanently. Meanwhile, their native state had become increasingly oppressive and tyrannical; the old methods of neo-Stalinism had become normalised and were being applied almost everywhere, albeit hidden from the outside view. As neither Taja Kramberger nor Drago Braco Rotar allowed themselves to be broken or bowed to the regime's offers, their names were erased from their real achievements, some of which are now either obliterated or attributed to others. In France, Drago Braco Rotar continues to research and write about the 20th century in Central Europe, and collaborates with Taja Kramberger on Addenda projects. RECOMPENSES: He was highly praised in ex-Yugoslavia for breaking new ground in poetry and prose (nouveau roman) in the sixties. He won the Mladost literary prize in Belgrade in 1968. Disillusioned with the demands of the literary establishment, he soon left the literary field to devote his life to the social sciences and humanities. He won the Oton Župančič Prize for monographs on the history and semiotics of urbanism in 1981. He received some scientific fellowships abroad. Officier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic (1999).
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The pleasure of sharingFor almost a quarter of a century, we (Taja and Braco), the driving forces behind the Addenda, have collaborated fruitfully and creatively on literary, scientific research, translation and editorial projects. We cannot think of a greater pleasure in work or in life than sharing the insights and joy of cognition that we have gained, and are still gaining, over the decades – first with each other and then with other people. During the shutdown epidemic summer (2021), we actually rewrote a bilingual poetry art book of our old verses in dialogue and entitled it Plaisir de Partager (see below; the eBook version is on sale in our store). It was such a relaxing and enjoyable experience. A poetic perspective on the world is still one of our most important connections. At Koper University in Slovenia, where we introduced an open debating practice in 2004, based on confrontation and coherent argumentation, we always had lecture rooms and seminars filled to the brim – and correspondingly, the highest student grades. In France, where we have lived and worked for the last eight years, there may be fewer students and clients, but the pleasure of debates is no lesser, as the communication is even more intensive, challenging and protracted in a country of mature pluralism and vibrant humour. Behind us, we have decades of experience in academia, literature, editing, translation and organisation. On top of that, we have a dissident experience. The latter is less pleasant and more exhausting, but it is crucial in many ways. Without it, many aspects of our murky and deceiving homeland would remain hidden from us forever. Thus, our latest creative-intellectual project, Addenda, is the culmination of all our endeavours. We believe that we can offer you top-quality writing and valuable insights into the world behind the mirror and beyond all mirrors, in various fiction and non-fiction genres. What's more, our Addenda books boast beautiful cover designs, professional fonts and a clear layout, all thanks to Canva and its leading team. Taja's experience of teaching English inside the French school system has been invaluable in helping her to design her own English courses. Our new colleagues and friends in France, who occasionally assist with some of the linguistic, computational and legal aspects of Addenda, are also highly qualified individuals. We owe them our deepest gratitude. Our products and activities are numerous and conceptually diverse, as well as being cognitively influential. We firmly believe that our broader reading audience can share in the pleasure we had in producing our eBooks when reading them. Take a good look at our pages, leaf through the previews of our eBooks and, if you like them, purchase some. You can also sign up below to receive our free annual catalogue of Addenda eBooks, which we prepare at the end of each year. We strive to ensure that each visit to the Addenda site and each interaction with our texts or lectures leaves a long-lasting impression. We apply the same principle to the Addenda project as we did in our university lecture rooms. We are happy when you, our readers and customers, are satisfied with our products! We all learn from each other. |
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© Addenda, Taja Kramberger & Drago Braco Rotar, 2022
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