Education & Training
- Ph.D., Russian Literature and Culture, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 2015
- Ph.D., Comparative Literature (with specialization in African American Literature), University of South Carolina, 2008
- MA, Slavic Languages and Literatures (Russian Literature), University of Pittsburgh, 2009
- BA, European and American Literatures, Saratov State University, Russia, 2001
Courses Taught
- Formative Masterpieces of 19th-century Russian Literature
- Sci-Fi East and West
- Vampire, Blood and Empire
- Modern Russian Culture
- Second, third, and fourth year Russian
Representative Publications
“Between Nation and Empire: Aleksandr Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter.” The Pushkin Review 21 (2019): 155-177.
“‘E’ for Empire: Empire and Postmodernism in the Context of the Sochi Olympic Games.” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 12 (2018): 1-17.
“Post-Soviet ‘Orient’ in Stories by Vladimir Makanin and Liudmila Petrushevskaia.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 59.1-2 (2017): 1-19.
“Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Film (length: 2,000 words). 2014.
“From Consumption to Objectification in Viktor Pelevin’s ‘Akiko’.” Studies in Slavic Cultures X (2012): 60-74.
“Terrors of History: Revolutionary Gothic in ‘Mother Earth’ By Boris Pilniak.” Slavic and East European Journal. (Fall 2011).
Rev. of Stage Fright: Politics and the Performing Arts in Late Imperial Russia by Paul Du Quenoy. Slavic and East European Journal. (Winter. 2010): 726-28.
“Masks of Authenticity: Failed Quests for the People in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Silver Dove by Andrei Belyi.” The Comparatist - Journal of the SCLA. 32 (2008): 175-92.
Research Interests
- Postmodernism
- Gothic/fantastic in Russian literature and culture
- Utopias
- Russian empire
- Postcolonial theory
- African American literature
Representative Conference Presentations
“Authenticity on Display: The Case of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlenskii.” ASEEES Convention, San Francisco, 2019
“Spinning Gender: Gendered Performances in Presidential Campaign, Russia 2018.” 19th Annual Aleksanteri Conference “Technology, Culture, and Society in the Eurasian Space, University of Helsinki, Finland, 2019
“History and Utopia in Sharov’s Fiction.” AATSEEL Convention, Washington D.C, 2018.
“Exercises in Utopia in Osokin and Fedorchenko’s Angels of Revolution,” International Young Researchers Conference, Cuma, Italy, 2017.
“Levels of Virtual Reality in Olga Slavnikova’s Light Head,” ASEEES Convention, Washington D.C, 2016
“‘E’ is for Empire: Representation of Empire in the Sochi Olympics,” AATSEEL Convention, Austin, 2016
“Conservative Nexus: Contemporary Russian Writers and the Media,” ASEEES Convention, Philadelphia, 2015
“Eccentric Geographies in Osokin and Fedorchenko’s the Buntings,” ASEEES Convention, San Antonio, 2014
“From Carnival to Allegory: Fantastic Bodies in Viktor Pelevin’s Empire V and Ol’ga Slavnikova’s Light Head.” MLA Convention, Boston, January 2013
“Dark Provincial Melodramas in Recent Russian Cinema.” AAASS convention, New Orleans, November 2012
“Heterotopia in Olga Slavnikova’s 2017,” AATSEEL Convention, Seattle, January 2012
“Under Russian Eyes: Orientalism and Universalism in Makanin and Petrushevskaia.” AAASS convention, Los Angeles, November 2010
“Periphery as Chronotope in Svetlana Vasilenko’s Little Fool: Novel-Vita,” ACLA Convention, New Orleans, April 2010
Employment Since Graduation
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen, 2018-present
Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Florida State University, 2017-2018
Visiting Assistant Professor and Fellow, Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University, Ohio, 2015-2017
Dissertation Title and Year
Heterotopia in Contemporary Russian Fiction, 2015