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Anna Karpusheva

  • Teaching Assistant Professor

Karpusheva's academic and teaching interests center on instructed second language acquisition, but they also span Slavic folklore, 19th-century Romantic prose, and Soviet and Post-Soviet literature and film. Her interests extend to representations of Soviet ideological heritage in late/post-Soviet Russophone literature, particularly in the works of Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich (the subject of her dissertation) and representations of trauma and memory in literature.

Education & Training

  • PhD, Slavic Languages and Literatures, the University of Kansas, 2020.
  • MA, Slavic Languages and Literatures, the University of Kansas, 2014.
  • Specialist and ABD, Germanic Philology (English and German), Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Barnaul State Pedagogical University, Russia, 2007, 2010. 

Courses Taught

  • Intensive Basic Russian Course (Beginner–Advanced)
  • Four-week Intensive Russian (first year, first semester)
  • Contemporary Russia: People and Opinions (cultural survey through authentic sources)
  • All levels of Russian (Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)
  • Russian for the Professions 
  • Introduction to Slavic Folklore
  • Ten-day Intensive Russian, refresher course for the National Guard
  • English Grammar
  • Literary Analysis (English)
  • English Speaking Practice
  • Written & Oral Translation (English-Russian)
  • All levels of English (Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)

Representative Publications

  • Russian Aspect in Conversation (the first online textbook on the Russian verbal aspect), co-authored with Stephen M. Dickey, Ph.D. and Kamila Saifeeva, March 2023. https://opentext.ku.edu/russianaspect/ 
  • “Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl: Between an Oral History and a Death Lament.” Canadian Slavonic Papers LIX, no. 3–4 (2017): 259–80.
  • Review of Evgenii Margolit, Живые и мёртвое. Заметки к истории советского кино 1920-1960-х годов, Санкт-Петербург, «Сеанс», 2012. in Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, 2015, http://www.apparatusjournal.net/index.php/apparatus/article/view/6/6
  • "Kognitivnye osnovy ponyatiia 'imidzh'" (the cognitive grounds of the notion of 'image'). Problemy mezhkul'turnoy kommunikatsii. Teoriya yazyka i metodologiia: Materialy k 4-oy mezhdunarodnoy konferentsii. no. 1 (2010): 78–89.
  • "Rol' rechevogo akta samoprezentatsii v postroenii imidzha govoriashchego v politicheskom diskurse" (the role of the self-presentation speech act in the speaker’s image-building in political discourse). Filologiia i chelovek. Vysshaya Attestatsionnaia komissiia, no. 4 (2010): 92–101.
  • "Rol' gendera v vybore strategiy i taktik samoprezentatsii v virtual'nom diskurse" (the role of gender in the choice of self-presentation strategies and tactics in web discourse). Kommunikativnaya lingvistika v sovremennom mire: Reguliruyushchaya priroda kommunikatsii, no.3 (2009): 108–17.
  • "Struktura imidzha lidera v amerikanskom politicheskom diskurse" (the structure of a leader’s image in American political discourse). Sovremennaia politicheskaia kommunikatsiia. Ural'skiy gosudarstvennyy universitet, no. 3 (2009): 65–73.

Research Interests

  • Russian verbal aspect
  • Russian verbs of motion
  • Russian, Soviet, and Post-Soviet women’s writing
  • Literary use of Slavic folklore genres
  • Literary representation of trauma
  • Genre issues in Svetlana Alexievich’s oeuvre

Representative Conference Presentations

  • “Introducing an Online Textbook for Russian Verbal Aspect: Russian Aspect in Conversation.” American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, Virtual Convention, co-presented with Stephen M. Dickey, Ph.D. and Kamila Saifeeva, February 2023.
  • “Svetlana Alexievich’s Prose in the West: A Puzzle for a Translator.” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Virtual Convention, November 2020. 
  • “Empowering the Soviet Woman’s Voice: Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War and the Genre of Requiem.” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Boston, MA, December 2018. 
  • “Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl: Between an Oral History and a Death Lament.” American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, San Francisco, CA, February 2017.
  • “Two Types of Female Superfluity in Shepit'ko’s ‘Wings’ and Zharkhi’s ‘Anna Karenina’” Central Slavic Conference, St. Louis, MO, November 2014.
  • "Kognitivnye osnovy ponyatiia 'imidzh'" (the cognitive grounds of the notion of 'image'). 4th International Conference: "Problems of Intercultural Communication in the Language Theory and Methodology," Altai State Pedagogical Academy, Barnaul, Russia, February 2010.
  • "Rol' gendera v vybore strategiy i taktik samoprezentatsii v virtual'nom diskurse" (the role of gender in the choice of self-presentation strategies and tactics in web discourse). 2nd International Conference: "Communicative Linguistics in the Modern World: Regulative Nature of Communication," Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia, November 2009.

Dissertation Title and Year

"Fighting a War: Svetlana Alexievich’s Prose between History and Literature." 2020.