Petra Taylor is the Executive Director of the European Center for the Study of War and Peace. A native of Croatia and a survivor of the recent war in the Balkans, Petra has earned her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MA in English from Loyola Marymount University, an MEd in TESOL from Boston University, and a BA in English from Gordon College. She specialises in Contemporary South Slavic literature, Oral South Slavic literature, modern American literature and multilingual literatures in the United States. She explores intersection of literature and philosophy, and literature and peacemaking. She is interested in questions of literature as a phenomenon that teaches us how to live with one another, connections and disconnect between nationalism and literature, and writers in exile. Petra also teaches courses in literature, language and culture.
