Literary Theory Online
Luz Seranoya started as a response to a specific gap: students across Ukraine with a genuine interest in literary theory had almost no structured way to study it without relocating to a major city. Geography was the obstacle, not aptitude.
The platform delivers sequential lectures on literary criticism, narrative theory, structuralism, and close reading — all accessible from wherever students happen to be. Each course is built around a clear argument, not a syllabus checklist.
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How a Lecture Gets Built
Each course at Luz Seranoya follows a deliberate sequence — from foundational vocabulary through to independent critical reading. No step is skipped, no assumption made about prior exposure.
Foundational Concepts
Students encounter the core vocabulary of literary theory — terms like mimesis, diegesis, and focalization — with clear definitions and textual examples before any critical framework is introduced.
Critical Frameworks
Structuralism, post-structuralism, reader-response theory, and New Criticism are each presented as distinct lenses — their assumptions made explicit so students understand what each framework can and cannot see.
Applied Analysis
Lectures work through actual texts — short stories, novel excerpts, poems — applying each framework in real time. Students see where interpretation diverges depending on the theoretical starting point.
Independent Critique
By the final lectures, students are equipped to argue a critical position of their own — choosing a framework deliberately, acknowledging its limits, and producing a reading that holds up under scrutiny.
Who Teaches Here
Each instructor brings a specific area of expertise — not a general humanities background, but a focused research practice in one corner of literary theory.
Daryna Kovalchuk
Narrative TheorySpecialises in focalization and unreliable narration. Her lectures on Genette's framework remain the most revisited material on the platform.
Bohdan Sirenko
Post-StructuralismResearch background in Derrida and Foucault applied to literary texts. Known for making dense theoretical material genuinely followable without flattening it.
Oksana Melnyk
Reader-Response TheoryFocuses on how meaning shifts between texts and readers. Her course on Iser and Fish draws students who have already studied other frameworks and want to interrogate their assumptions.
Questions Worth Asking
Choosing a course in literary theory takes some thought — the frameworks are specific and the terminology matters. If you want to talk through which course fits where you are right now, the team at Luz Seranoya is reachable by phone and email.
