Julia Maria Seltnerajch

Julia Maria Seltnerajch is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin. Her research focuses on postmodernism, spatial semiotics, and dystopian narratives in contemporary British and American fiction.

• Key affiliations:
  • Department of English and American Studies, UMCS
  • Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
  • ORCID: 0000-0003-0143-4874

Research interests include urban space in postmodern literature, metafictional techniques, the evolution of detective and road fiction, and memory studies. She explores how cities function as active agents in narratives by Paul Auster, Neil Gaiman, and Dmitry Glukhovsky. Her work intersects literary theory with urban studies, emphasizing chronotopes, heterotopias, and semiotic space.

Scientific contributions are evident in 15 recent publications (2016–2024) analyzing dystopian environments (Auster’s In the Country of Last Things, Gaiman’s Neverwhere, DuPrau’s The City of Ember), metafictional structures (Auster’s Man in the Dark, Travels in the Scriptorium), and genre transformations (road narratives in The Music of Chance, underground spaces in Metro 2033 and Neverwhere).