Nineteenth-
and twentieth-century Russian poetry, Pushkin, Tsvetaeva, poetry
and mythopoetics
Current Position
Associate Professor of
Russian Language and Literature, Department of German and
Russian, University of Notre Dame, 2005-present
Additional titles:
Co-Director, Program in Russian and East European Studies;
Faculty Fellow, Nanovic Institute for European Studies
Employment History
Notre
Dame Assistant Endowed Chair in Russian Language and Literature,
Department of German and Russian, University of Notre Dame,
2001-2005
Assistant Professor of
Russian Language and Literature, Department of German and
Russian, University of Notre Dame, 1999-2001
Teaching Assistant for
Elementary Russian, Department of Slavic Languages and
Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 1994
Teacher of British and
American Literature, School No. 210 (now Gimnaziya No. 1570),
Moscow, Russia, 1992-1993
Teacher of British and
American Literature, Soviet-Anglo-American School “Marina,”
Moscow, USSR, 1990-1991
Education
Ph.D. (1998)University
of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Slavic Languages and
Literatures
Major: Russian Literature; Minor: Polish Literature
Dissertation: “Exorcising the Beloved: Problems of Gender
and Selfhood
in Marina Tsvetaeva’s Myths of Poetic Genius”
Advisor: Professor David M. Bethea
M.A. (1992)University
of
Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
B.A. (1990)Brandeis
University,
summa cum laude
Major:
English and American Literature; Minor: Mathematics
Highest Honors in English and American Literature
Honors thesis: “A World Imagined: The Feminine
Resolution of Tension
in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens”
Language
Institutes
Summer Institute of Polish
Language and Culture, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, Summer
1996
Ohio State University Russian Language Program, Pushkin
Institute of Russian Language Moscow, Russia, Spring 1990
Honors and Awards
Joint third prize, The Joseph
Brodsky/Stephen Spender Translation Prize, held under the auspices
of the Stephen Spender Trust, for my translation of Marina
Tsvetaeva's poem "Two Trees Desire to Come Together," November
2011
Second prize, Compass Award for Russian
Poetry in English, the first annual international translation
contest held under the auspices of the Cardinal Points journal,
for my translation of
Nikolai Gumilev’s poem “Giraffe,” September 2011
Distinguished Alumna, University of
Wisconsin-Madison Slavic Department: invited to attend annual
AATSEEL-Wisconsin conference, hold a mentoring workshop with
current Ph.D. students,
and present a paper at the conference, Madison, Wisconsin, October
2010
Honorable
mention, Pushkin Review
Mniszek’s sonnet translation competition, Fall 2007
Accepted to participate in Oxford Pushkin Seminar, July 2007
My book A Russian
Psyche: The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva was named an
“OutstandingAcademic
Title” for 2001 by Choice magazine,
a publication for academic librarians
Visiting Scholar,
Warsaw University.Affiliations
with the Institute of Polish Literature and the Institute of Russian Philology.May – June 2001
Midwestern Regional
Prize, AAASS Graduate Student Essay Contest, September 1998
Polanki
Award in Polish Studies, Polish Women’s Cultural Club of
Milwaukee, April 1995
J. Thomas
Shaw Prize for best graduate student paper at Wisconsin-AATSEEL,
April 1994
Andrew W. Grossbardt Memorial Poetry Prize,
May 1990
Brandeis University Scholar in the Humanities,
October 1989
Dorothy B.
Moyer Memorial Award for creative work in languages and
literatures, May 1989
Phi Beta
Kappa, junior year induction, May 1989
Major Grants and Fellowships
National
Endowment
for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship for Dangerous Verses: Crime
and Conscience in the Works of
Alexander Pushkin, 2005–06 [subsequently retitled to Dangerous Verses: Alexander
Pushkin and the Ethics of Inspiration]
Social Science Research
Council Dissertation Fellowship, 1997 – 1998
Foreign Language and Area
Studies Graduate Fellowship, Spring 1997 and 1995 – 1996
University of
Wisconsin-Madison Detling Dissertation Fellowship, Fall 1996
American Council of
Learned Societies Language Study Grant, Summer 1996
U.S. Department of Education
Fellowship, Spring 1995
University
of Wisconsin-Madison Prize Fellowship, 1993 – 1994 and 1991 –
1992
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship (offer
declined for personal reasons), March 1992
Institute for Scholarship in the
Liberal
Arts, Publication Subvention Grant ($5,000) for Russian language
edition of A Russian
Psyche: The Poetic Mind of Marina
Tsvetaeva (forthcoming from
Pushkinskii Dom, St. Petersburg,
Russia)
Nanovic Institute for European Studies Grant ($1,127) to support
European
Studies beyond the classroom, to take a group of
20 Russian students to a performance (in Russian) of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov by the Chicago Lyric Opera on
November 11, 2011
Nanovic
Institute for European Studies Faculty Travel and Research Grant
($2,000) for
research trip to Moscow, April 2011
Institute
for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Publication Subvention
Grant ($5,000) for Taboo
Pushkin: Topics, Texts, Interpretations, University of Wisconsin Press,
February 2011
Nanovic
Institute for European Studies, Special Grant ($6,000) to
support publication
of proceedings from the Nanovic-supported symposium “Alexander
Pushkin and Russian
National Identity: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations” as the
book Taboo Pushkin:
Topics, Texts, Interpretations, University
of Wisconsin Press, February 2011
Institute
for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts Provost’s Distinguished
Woman Lecturer
Grant ($7,000), to bring Caryl Emerson, A. Watson Armour III
University
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures to
the Notre Dame campus on February 10-13, 2010
Nanovic
Institute for European Studies Grant ($2,000) to support European
Studies
beyond the classroom, to take a group of 20 Russian students to a
performance
(in Czech) of LeošJanáček’s
opera Katya Kabanova by the Chicago Lyric Opera on
December 1, 2009
Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts Materials Grant ($1,500) for the
development of
a new course
entitled “One Thousand Years of Russian Culture,” July 2009
Nanovic
Institute for European Studies Symposium Sponsorship ($12,500)
for Alexander Pushkin and
Russian National
Identity: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations (a
conference on the Notre Dame campus), January 2009
Institute
for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts Mini-Conference Grant
($5,000) and Seed
Grant for Cooperative Projects ($2,500) for Alexander
Pushkin and Russian National Identity: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations,
January 2009
University of
Notre Dame Graduate School Office of Research Matching Grant
($5,000) for Alexander
Pushkin and Russian National
Identity: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations, January
2009
Tenured
Faculty Career Enhancement Grant ($3,115), for attendance at
Oxford Pushkin
Seminar, July 2007
Summer Research Grant ($4,000), Institute for Scholarship in
the Liberal Arts, University of Notre Dame,
Summer 2005
Summer Research Grant ($4,000), Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts,
University of Notre Dame,
Summer 2003
Summer Research Grant ($10,122), Faculty Research Program,
University of Notre Dame, Summer 2001
Publication
Subvention Grant ($2,500) to the University of Wisconsin Press
for A Russian Psyche: The
Poetic Mind of Marina
Tsvetaeva, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts,
University of Notre Dame, Fall
2000
New Course
Development Grant ($3,500) for “Russian Women Memoirists,”
Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, University of Notre Dame,
Summer 2000
Research
Monograph
A Russian Psyche:
The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 2001) (xvii + 285 pp.)
Monograph in Progress
Dangerous Verses:
Alexander Pushkin and the Ethics of Inspiration (a study of the
interrelationship between poetic inspiration and motifs of
crime, guilt, conscience, and responsibility in Pushkin’s works), expected
completion date September 2013
Edited Volumes
Taboo Pushkin:
Topics, Texts, Interpretations (a collection of essays
discussing aspects of Pushkin’s life, works, and critical
reception that have long been subject to taboo in Russian culture)
(University of Wisconsin
Press, forthcoming spring 2012; 649 manuscript pp.)
Russian Literature
in the Age of Realism, vol. 277 in the series Dictionary of Literary
Biography (Detroit: Gale Group, 2003) (xxi + 498 pp.)
Translated
Volume in Progress
Narratives of
Transformation: The Russian Poema in the Twentieth Century
(an anthology of twenty-five poemy or long narrative
poems spanning the twentieth century, translated from the Russian,
with explanatory notes, biographical essays on the poets, and a
scholarly introduction), early stage
Articles in Refereed Journals
“Through a Glass Darkly: Doubling and Poetic
Self-Image in Pushkin’s ‘The Gypsies,’” The Russian Review 68: 3
(July 2009), 451-76
“Between Myth and History: An Interpretation of Osip
Mandel’shtam’s Poem ‘V Peterburge my sojdemsja snova,’”
Russian Literature 56:4
(fall 2004), 363-95
“Side-Stepping
Silence, Ventriloquizing Death: A Reconsideration of Pushkin’s
Stone Island Cycle,” Pushkin Review 6/7
(2003-2004), 39-83
“Poem
as Performance: A New Interpretation of Sep-Szarzynski’s Sonnet V
‘On the Impermanent Love for Things of This World,’” Slavic and East European
Journal, 47:4 (winter 2003), 569-88
“Thirsting for Angelic: Death and
Reciprocity in Tsvetaeva’s Poems to Rilke,” specialissue of The Canadian-American Slavic
Studies, edited by Leonid Livak, 37:1-2 (spring-summer 2003), 3-27
“Sexual Transcendence in Tsvetaeva’s Poems
to Pasternak,” Slavic
Review 59:3 (fall 2000), 547-71
“Bearing
the Standard: Transformative Ritual in Gorky’s Mother and the Legacy of
Tolstoy,” Slavic
and East European Journal 42:1 (spring 1998), 76-101
“Ambiguity as Agent in Pushkin’s and Shakespeare’s
Historical Tragedies,” Slavic
Review 55:3 (fall
1996), 525-51
Articles in Books
“Taboo and
Transcendence: The Role of Secrecy in Pushkin’s Mythopoetics,” in
Festschrift for Kiril Taranovsky,
edited by Barry P. Scherr, (Slavica Publishers, forthcoming 2012)
“Beyond Pushkin
as Dogma,” introduction to Taboo
Pushkin: Topics, Texts, Interpretations, ed.
Alyssa Dinega Gillespie (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
forthcoming spring 2012; 54 manuscript pp.)
“Bawdy and Soul:
Pushkin’s Poetics of Obscenity,” in Taboo Pushkin: Topics,
Texts, Interpretations,
ed. Alyssa Dinega Gillespie (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, forthcoming spring 2012; 56 manuscript pp.)
“Murderous Mirror Magic:
Pushkin’s Mythopoetic Reflections on Transgression and the
Artistic Impulse,” Russian
Literature and the West: A Tribute for David M. Bethea,
edited by Alexander Dolinin, Lazar Fleishman, and Leonid Livak, 2
vols. (Stanford: Stanford Slavic Studies, 2008), 1:
41-65
“That Distant Road, That
Sadness: The Creation of Exile in Poems by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska and Marina
Tsvetaeva,” in Russkaia emigratsiia.
Literatura. Istoriia. Kinoletopis’, edited by V.
Khazan, I. Belobrovtseva, and S. Dotsenko (Jerusalem: Gesharim & Moscow: Mosty
kul’tury, 2004), 88-108 [republished in Polish translation as “‘Ten trakt daleki, ten smutek.’ Kreacja wygnania w
wierszach Marii Pawlikowskiej-Jasnorzewskiej i Mariny
Cwietajewej”
in Polonistyka po
amerykańsku: Badania nad literaturą polską w Ameryce Północnej (1990-2005),
edited by Halina Filipowicz, Andrzej Karcz, and Tamara Trojanowska
(Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk Wydawnictwo, 2005), 206-28]
Articles in Encyclopedias
“Osip Mandel’shtam,” in Encyclopedia of Modern
Europe: Europe Since 1914—Encyclopedia of the Age of War and
Reconstruction, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter, 5
vols. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006), 3: 1718-21
“Joseph
Brodsky,” in Russian
Writers Since 1980, edited by Marina Balina and Mark
Lipovetsky, vol. 285 in the series Dictionary of Literary
Biography (Detroit: Gale Group, 2003), 17-39 [republished in an expanded
version in Nobel Prize
Laureates in Literature, Part 1: Agnon-Eucken
(Detroit: Gale Group, 2007), 184-202]
Notes
“Life after Graduate School.” In Slavic Languages and
Literatures Department Newsletter, University of
Wisconsin-Madison 11 (summer 2010), 13-14
“Invitation to a Feast: Teaching Russian Culture in
the 21st Century.” In Forum:
University of Notre Dame College of Arts and
Lettters Faculty Newsletter 1:2 (spring 2006), 3
“Suggestions for
Improving Enrollments in Russian-Language Programs: Interviews
and Letters about Success Stories.” In The AATSEEL Newsletter 46:2
(April 2003), 6-7
Translations
Nikolai Gumilev, “Giraffe,” in Cardinal Points/Storony
sveta (forthcoming).
8 poems (by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tiutchev,
A. N. Tolstoi, Gippius, Tsvetaeva, and Pasternak), in Picturing
Rachmaninoff: Music, Poetry, and Painting in Concert, with
music performed by pianist
Stephen Cook and published as a book plus CD, 2010
Alexander Pushkin, “Mniszek’s Sonnet” (from
Boris Godunov). In Pushkin Review 10 (2007), 152-53
21 selected poems by Russian-Jewish poets.
In Anthology of
Russian-Jewish Literature: Two Centuries of a Dual Identity
(1800-present), edited by Maxim Shrayer (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2007)
Margarita Grendze, “A Fiery Baptism.” In Echoes of War: World War II
through Russian Eyes (San Diego: San Diego Association of
Russian WWII Veterans, 2005), 37-39
Marina
Tsvetaeva, “Stikhi k Chekhii: Mart (8).” In Marina Tsvetaeva: Lichnye i
tvorcheskie vstrechi,
perevody
ee sochinenii (Moscow:
Dom-muzei Mariny Tsvetaevoi, 2001), 407-8
Marina Tsvetaeva, “Poem of the
Mountain” and “Poem of the End.” In The Silver Age Journal
2 (1999), 52-111
Book Reviews
Alexandra Smith, Montaging Pushkin: Pushkin
and Visions of Modernity in Russian Twentieth-Century Poetry. In Canadian Slavonic
Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 51:2-3 (June-September 2009), 362-63
Catherine
Ciepiela, The Same
Solitude: Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva. In Slavonica 14:1 (spring 2008), 72-73
Ute Stock, The Ethics of the Poet:
Marina Tsvetaeva’s Art in the Light of
Conscience. In Slavonica
13:1 (spring 2007), 80-81
Chester
Dunning with Caryl Emerson, Sergei Fomichev, Lidiia Lotman, and
Antony Wood, The
Uncensored Boris Godunov: The Case for Pushkin’s Original Comedy, with
Annotated Text and Translation. In Slavic and East European
Journal50:4
(winter 2006), 696-8
Michael
Wachtel, The Cambridge
Introduction to Russian Poetry. In The Russian Review 64:3 (July 2005), 505-6
Diana
Greene, Reinventing
Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth
Century. In Slavic Review 64: 1
(spring 2005), 230-31
Jan Kochanowski, Treny:
The Laments of Kochanowski, translated by Adam Czerniawski.
In Slavic and East European Journal 47:2
(summer
2003), 305-7
Emily Klenin, The Poetics of Afanasy Fet.In Slavic Review 62:3 (fall
2003), 629-31
“Verse and Subversion,” review of David MacFadyen’s Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet
Muse.In The Review of Politics 63:4
(fall
2001), 815-17
David Burnett, Marina Tsvetaeva; David
Burnett, Akhmatova.In Slavic and East European Journal 43:4 (winter
1999), 707-8
Olga Peters Hasty, Tsvetaeva’s
Orphic
Journeys in the Worlds of the Word.In Slavic and East European
Journal 42:3 (fall 1998), 174-76
Robin Kemball, Efim Etkind, and Leonid Heller, eds., Marina Tsvetaeva: Actes du
1-er colloque international; Viktoria Schweitzer, et al.,
eds., Marina Tsvetaeva:
One Hundred Years.In
Slavic and East European
Journal 41:2 (summer 1997), 373-75
Art Exhibit
Guest curator, Darker Shades of Red:
Official Soviet Propaganda from the Cold War,an exhibit at the
University of Notre Dame Snite Museum of Art, September
19-November 14, 2004
Book Series
Series Editor, “Myths and Taboos in Russian Culture,” book
series for Academic Studies Press, a scholarly publisher
specializing in Slavic Studies and Jewish Studies, Brighton,
Massachusetts
Live Performance
On-stage readings of the original Russian versions and my
new English translations of 8 poems (by Pushkin, Lermontov,
Tiutchev, A. N. Tolstoi, Gippius, Tsvetaeva, and Pasternak), with
projected images of paintings (mostly Russian) and Rachmaninoff’s
Etudes-Tableaux Op. 39
performed by pianist Stephen Cook, in Picturing Rachmaninoff:
Music, Poetry, and Painting in Concert, March 18, 2010
“Secrets, the Sacred, and Sacrilege:
Pushkin’s Pursuit of Poetic Knowledge,” at the invitational
conference “Poetry and Poetics: A Centennial Tribute to Kiril
Taranovsky,” Dartmouth College, Hanover, New
Hampshire, March 2011
“Creative Camouflage in Pushkin’s ‘Egyptian Nights,’” on
the panel “Pushkin’s Muses Revisited: Inspiration, Memory,
Reception,” ASEEES Convention, Los Angeles, California, November 2010
Discussant for the panel “Intersections of Life and Art in
Pushkin’s Works,” ASEEES Convention, Los Angeles,
California, November 2010
“Sex, Sin, Seduction, and the Sacred: Pushkin’s
‘Gavriiliada’ as a Meditation on the Risks and Responsibilities of
Being a Poet,” invited paper at Wisconsin-AATSEEL conference,
Madison, Wisconsin, October 2010
“Boris Godunov and Dmitry the Pretender: History, Poetry,
Opera, Theater,” lecture preceding Metropolitan Opera broadcast of
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov,
University of Notre Dame, October 2010
“Teaching Language through Culture (and Culture through
Language),” for the Teaching
Culture session of the Foreign Language Council Workshop
Series, University of Notre Dame, February 2010
Discussant for the panel “Re-Imagining Pushkin”
(panelists: Michael Wachtel, Princeton U., Sonia Ketchian, Harvard
U., and Barry Scherr, Dartmouth College), AAASS Convention,
Boston, Massachusetts,
November 2009
“Bawdy and Soul: Functions of Genital
Imagery in Pushkin’s Poetics,” on the panel “The Sacred and the
Profane,” at the conference Alexander Pushkin and
Russian National Identity, Notre Dame,
Indiana, January 2009
“Pushkin and
the Poetics of Secrecy,” on the panel “Russian Poets and
Politics,” AAASS Convention,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2008
“Teaching Gender through Pushkin,” on the roundtable
“Teaching Pushkin: Gender, Difference, Race,” AAASS
Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2008
“The Ethical Dimension of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov,” on the
panel “Reconsiderations of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov,” AATSEEL
Conference, Chicago, Illinois, December 2007
“Sex, Sin,
Seduction, and the Sacred: Pushkin’s ‘Gavriiliada’ as a Meditation
on the Risks and Responsibilities of Being a Poet,” on the panel
“Pushkin Unsainted: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations,”
AAASS Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 2007
“Pushkin’s
Criminal
Doubles,” on the panel “Art and Crime,” AAASS Convention, Salt
Lake City, Utah,
November 2005
“Pushkin
and the Muse,” on the panel “The Darker Side of Pushkin,” AAASS
Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, December 2004
“Looking Back from Beyond: The Poetics of Pushkin’s Stone
Island Cycle,” on the panel “The Poetics of Closure: The End of
the Poem/Poet and Death in Russian Poetry,” AAASS Convention, Toronto, Ontario,
November 2003
“Pushkin’s
Poetics
of Transgression,” on the panel “‘Vnov’ ia posetil’: The Pushkin
Myth Revisited,” AAASS Convention, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, November 2002
“Thirsting for Angelic: Death and Reciprocity in
Tsvetaeva’s Poems to Rilke,” invited lecture, University
of Toronto, February 2001
“Along an Invisible Track:
Tsvetaeva’s Poetics of Exile,” on the panel “Literature in
Exile,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D. C.,
December 2000
“Battling Aphrodite: Tsvetaeva’s
Polemical Poems to Akhmatova,”British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies
Convention, Cambridge, England, April 2000
“Poet as Aeronaut: Brodsky’s Dialogue with Tsvetaeva on
Aging and the Poetic Death-Wish,” on the panel “Poetry
and Poetics,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, Illinois, December 1999
“When Psyche Vanquishes Eve: Marina Tsvetaeva’s Poetics
of Renunciation,” Gender Studies Forum, University of
Notre Dame, October 1999
“The Russian Psyche: Tsvetaeva’s Asexual Ideal,” on the
panel “Metaphysics and Sexuality,” AATSEEL Conference,
San Francisco, California, December 1998
“Ne serdtse, a serdtsevina: Trees in the Poetry of Marina
Tsvetaeva,” AAASS Convention, Boca Raton, Florida,
September 1998
“Marina Tsvetaeva’s ‘Poem of the End,’”
Guest Lecture, Wellesley College, April 1998
“‘Son glubok’: Writing Blo(c)k in Marina Tsvetaeva’s Stikhi k Bloku,”New England Slavic Association
Annual
Meeting, Medford, Massachusetts, March 1998
“Boris Pasternak and the Metaphysics of Rain: My Sister, Life and Doctor Zhivago,” AATSEEL
Conference,
Washington, D.C., December 1996
“Music of Death: Marina Tsvetaeva and her Cruel Genius,”
AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, November 1996
“Textual Schizophrenia in F. M. Dostoevskij’s Dvojnik: A
Re-Exploration of the Problem,” AATSEEL Conference,
Chicago, Illinois, December 1995
“Dramatic Rituals: The Moral and Aesthetic Role of
Language in the Historical Tragedies of Pushkin and
Shakespeare,” AAASS convention, Washington, D.C., October 1995
“The Flagpole scenes of War and Peace and Mother as Transformative
Ritual: Gor’kij’s Polemic with Tolstoj,”Wisconsin-AATSEEL
conference, Madison, Wisconsin, April 1995
“Unraveled Texts: The Problem of Return in Poems by
Wallace Stevens and Osip Mandel’shtam,” AATSEEL Conference, San Diego,
California, December 1994
Conferences and Seminars Organized
Provost’s Distinguished Woman
Lecturer, Seminar and Lecture Series by Caryl Emerson, A. Watson
Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and
Literatures at Princeton University, February 10-13, 2010
Nanovic Institute for European Studies
Visiting European Scholar Seminar Series, featuring Igor
Pilshchikov, Leading Researcher, Institute of World Culture,
Moscow State University and Editor-in-Chief, Philologica, January
13-16, 2009
Alexander Pushkin and Russian
National Identity: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations, on the campus of the University of
Notre Dame (featured presentations by leading and emerging
scholars from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Russia), January
9-11, 2009
Panels Chaired
“Intersections
of Life and Art in Pushkin’s Works,” ASEEES Convention, Los
Angeles, November
2010
“Meeting
Points
of Life and Art in Pushkin,” AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, November 2009
“Taboo
Topics in Russian Literary Studies: Griboedov, Pushkin,
Lermontov,” AAASSConvention,
New Orleans, Louisiana, November 2007
“Poetry
and Poetics,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C., December 2000
“Myth
in Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, December 1999
“Russian Modernism and the
West,” AATSEEL Conference, Toronto, December 1997
“Generic
Intersections: Poets in Prose and Prose Writers in Poetry in Russian Literature,” AATSEEL
Conference, Washington, D.C., December 1996
“The Cultural Landscape of Russian Women,” AAASS
Convention, Boston,November
1996
“Slavic
Literature of the Interwar Period,” Wisconsin-AATSEEL Conference, Madison, April 1995
Panels Organized
“Reconsiderations of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov”
(sponsored by the North American Pushkin Society),
AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, Illinois, December 2007
“Pushkin Unsainted: Taboo Texts, Topics,
Interpretations,” AAASS Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana,
November 2007
“The Darker Side of Pushkin” (North American Pushkin
Society panel), AAASS Convention,
Boston, December 2004
“‘Vnov’
ia posetil’: The Pushkin Myth Revisited,” AAASS Convention, Pittsburgh, November 2002
“Russian
Women’s Autobiographical Writing: Theory and Praxis,” AATSEEL
Conference, New Orleans, December 2001
“Poetry
and Poetics,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C., December 2000
“Myth
in Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, December 1999
“Portrayals
of Nature in Russian Modernist Poetry,” AAASS Convention, Boca Raton,
September 1998
“Generic
Intersections: Poets in Prose and Prose Writers in Poetry in Russian Literature,” AATSEEL
Conference, Washington, D.C., December 1996
Scholarly Seminars and Workshops Attended
Colloquium on Violence and Religion
(COV&R): “Transforming Violence: Cult, Culture, and Acculturation,” University of
Notre Dame, June 30-July 4, 2010
Oxford Pushkin Seminar, Wadham College, Oxford
University, July 8-14, 2007
Ideas and Power in Modern Europe: A Conference in Honor of
Andrzej Walicki, University
of Notre Dame, January 20-21, 2006
Teaching
Courses Taught at the University of Notre Dame
Russian Language
Beginning Russian I and II
An
introduction to the Russian language. Develops students’
skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, while
also fostering an appreciation for Russian culture.
Emphasis is placed on the acquisition of basic structures,
vocabulary, and sound systems. (Textbook: Marita
Nummikoski, Troika: A Communicative Approach to Russian
Language, Life, and Culture.)
Advanced Russian I and II
Designed
to significantly improve students’ comprehension, reading, and
self-expression skills in Russian and to prepare them to read
and study Russian literature in the original. The course has
two main components: language and literature. The language
component includes an intensive review of essential Russian
grammar principles; Russian stylistics, syntax, and advanced
grammar topics; essay writing in Russian; and extensive work
on vocabulary building and advanced conversation skills. The
literature component includes a foundation in the major
movements, tendencies, and authors of 19th- and 20th-century
Russian literature and an introduction to the reading and
analysis of a wide range of literary texts (fiction and
poetry). The course is conducted primarily in Russian.
Literature and Culture
Taught in Russian
Pushkin
An
introduction to Pushkin’s life and works. Through a reading
and discussion of selections from Pushkin’s lyric verse,
narrative poetry, drama, and prose, students gain an
appreciation for Pushkin’s extraordinary literary imagination
and innovativeness, as well as his significance for the
history of Russian literature as a whole. Attention is given
to Pushkin’s evolving understanding of his role as Russia’s
national poet, including such themes in his work as the beauty
of the Russian countryside, the poet’s sacred calling,
political repression and the dream of civic freedom, Russia’s
relationship to East and West, the dialectic between chance
and fate, St. Petersburg and the specter of Revolution, and
the subversive power of art.
Chekhov
An
introduction to the short stories and plays of Anton Chekhov,
with attention to the development of his art of
characterization, dialogue, plot construction, and innovative
dramatic technique. Central themes are alienation and banality
in Chekhov’s works, his attitude to science and progress, and
his views on the future of Russia. A portion of the semester
is largely devoted to the reading and performance (in Russian)
of Chekhov’s one-act comedy The Marriage Proposal (Predlozhenie).
Russian Romanticism
An introduction to the
literature of Russian Romanticism, which was the first literary
movement in Russia to seek to develop a definitively national,
uniquely Russian literature and literary language. The course
explores this quest for a national literature in light of
Russian Romanticism’s Western influences. Students read works of
poetry, fiction, and drama by a diverse group of Romantic
writers; each thematiс unit begins with a work of British
Romanticism and then moves on to a number of works from the
Russian tradition. Themes of the course include the national and
the exotic, the natural and the supernatural, rebellion and
social alienation, violence and passion, Byronism, and poetic
inspiration.
Introduction
to Russian Poetry
An
introduction to Russian poetry, poetic movements, and verse
forms. The course surveys the major periods and styles of
Russian poetry, including Classicism and the Baroque (18th
century), Romanticism and the post-Romantics (19th century),
and the early Modernist poetry of the pre-revolutionary period
(including Symbolism, Acmeism and Futurism) as well as later
20th-century Russian poetry. Readings include poems by
Derzhavin, Pushkin, Pavlova, Zhukovskii, Tiutchev, Nekrasov,
Blok, Akhmatova, Mandel’shtam, Pasternak, Khlebnikov,
Maiakovskii, Tsvetaeva, Vysotskii, Brodskii, and others.
Emphasis is placed on the evolution of verse forms and
poetics, as students come to appreciate the extraordinary
power of the Russian poetic word in the context of Russian
society, history, and culture.
Literature and Culture
Taught in Translation
Post-Soviet
Russian Cinema
Freed
from the constraints of Soviet-era censorship, since 1990
Russian filmmakers have exploited the unique qualities of the
film medium in order to create compelling portraits of a
society in transition. The films we watch in this course cover
a broad spectrum: reassessing Russia’s rich pre-Revolutionary
cultural heritage as well as traumatic periods in Soviet
history (World War II, the Stalinist era); grappling with
formerly taboo social issues (gender roles, anti-Semitism,
alcoholism); taking an unflinching look at new social problems
resulting from the breakdown of the Soviet system (the rise of
neo-fascism, the war in Chechnya, organized crime); and
meditating on Russia’s current political and cultural dilemmas
(the place of non-Russian ethnicities within Russia, Russians’
love-hate relationship with the West). From this complex
cinematic patchwork emerges a picture of a new, raw Russia, as
yet confused and turbulent, but full of vitality and promise
for the future.
One
Thousand Years of Russian Culture
In 1939 Winston Churchill famously called Russia “a
riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” This course
is an introduction to the mysteries of Russian culture from
medieval times to the present that are often overlooked in
surveys of Western European art, literature, and culture.
Through explorations into the Russian religious tradition,
painting, music, architecture, dance, cinema, folk art and
folk tales, proverbs and superstitions, intellectual debates,
socio-political movements, and of course literature, the
course explores the ways in which Russians define themselves
and their place in the world, and how they experience and
express their cultural uniqueness as well as their ties to
both East and West. By the end of the course, students are
able to trace certain patterns of belief and sensibility in
Russian culture that persist in spite of the country’s long
history of succumbing to sudden, revolutionary change.
Literary readings for the course range from the ancient
historical chronicles and lives of early Russian saints, to
short works by such classic Russian authors as Pushkin,
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov, to poems and stories by
several contemporary authors.
A
Space for Speech: Russian Women Memoirists
Throughout
the history of Russian literature, the genres of
autobiography, memoir, and diary have provided a venue for
women writers to find their voices in a private arena safely
distanced from the privileged genres of novels and lyric
poetry. This course examines the history and development
of the female memoir in Russian literature, from the
eighteenth-century memoirs of a courtier of Catherine the
Great to documents of the Stalinist terror and prison camp
life of the twentieth century. The course also addresses
theoretical questions about women's autobiographical writing
and considers the relationship of the works students read to
the dominant (male-centered) Russian literary tradition.
Freshman
Seminar -- Chasing the Troika: Russia’s
Literary Search for Self
Russia’s identity crisis began long before the fall
of the Berlin Wall, the onset of perestroika, or even the
Bolshevik Revolution. In this introduction to nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Russian literature, we explore the
historical and cultural roots of the problems facing Russia
today. By focusing on images of “Russia” and “Russianness” in
works by some of the greatest Russian writers and poets
(Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Akhmatova, Solzhenitsyn, and
others), we trace Russia’s tortured literary search for her
own national identity.
Sophomore
Seminar -- Single and Double Selves
This course
addresses a basic question of human identity: how do we form a
concept of the singular self? And what happens on the margins of
that concept, when self and other, individuality and alterity,
seem to merge disconcertingly (and often traumatically)?
The topics of the course include such phenomena as twins,
doubles or so-called doppelgängers, dream-doubles, alter
egos and anti-egos, split personalities, shadow figures,
imposters, vampires, clones, and mirror reflections. We
approach our study of self-definition and its limits from a
variety of theoretical perspectives drawn from the fields of
anthropology, psychiatry, philosophy, and cultural and literary
studies, and we have occasion to reflect on such diverse
matters as folklore and mythology; the body-soul dichotomy;
early childhood psychological development; primitive ancestor
worship (totemism); conscience and the unconscious; demonic
possession; ghosts and the occult; the construction of racial,
cultural, national, and gender identities; animistic belief
systems; shamanism; the nature of authorship and authorial
self-creation; the attractions and dangers of mimesis; and the
subversive power of art.
Senior Theses Supervised
James Stein, "The Poet and
Poetic Self-Definition in the Works of Osip Mandel'shtam and
Joseph Brodsky: Motifs of Ancient Greece and Rome," for the
Program in Liberal Studies major, 2011-12
Katherine
Mohrig, “Anti-Feminist Feminism: A Humanist Approach to the
Problem of Adultery in Anna
Karenina and The
Storm,” for the Russian and East European Studies
supplementary major,
2010-11
Dane
Reighard, “Translation with Commentary of Rashel Khin’s Drama Under the Protection of
the Penates,” for
honors in the Russian major, 2009-10
Mary
Ann Barge, “Remembering and Re-Gendering: The Undoing of Gender
in Siege of Leningrad Memoirs,
and How It Shapes Their Meaning,” for honors in the Russian
major, 2008-09
J.
Curtis Drummond, “At the Water’s Edge: Breaking with Traditional
Imagery in 21st-Century Russian Cinema,” for the
Russian and East European Studies minor, 2008-09
Megan
McClain, “Ties that Bind: Romance, Disillusionment, and
Captivity in Russian Literature of the
Caucasus,” for honors in the Russian major, 2006-2007
Rose Lindgren, “Sveta: A Fictional Account of the
Truth about Sexual Trafficking,” for the European Studies minor, Spring
2004
Zenovia
Lockhart, “The Poetic Successor as Chronicler: Bella
Akhmadulina’s Relationship to Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova,” for the
Russian and East European Studies minor, Spring 2001
Course Websites
Note:
These websites are password-protected.
RU 30510, One Thousand Years of Russian Culture
<housed in Concourse>
RU 180J, Russian Literature and the Arts through
History: <http://www.nd.edu/~adinega/freshsem>
Other Teaching-Related Extra-Curricular Activities
Maintain a calendar of
Russian and East European-related cultural events in Michiana,
southwestern Michigan, and Chicago which is posted to the
Russian program website and disseminated to students each
semester, fall 2008-present
Organized
student trip to Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Modest
Mussorgsky's opera Boris
Godunov, November 11, 2011
Led discussion
group on teaching German and Russian in the U.S., Fulbright
Language Teaching Assistant
Orientation Session, University of Notre Dame, August 2009,
2010, 2011
Organized student trip to South Bend Symphony
Orchestra concert “Russian Dreams,”featuring violin soloist
Zofia Glashauser and a program of works by Borodin, Tchaikovsky,
and Prokofiev,
January 22, 2011-01-28
Instructor of
the 1-credit Russian and East European Studies Cultural
Enrichment course (RU 47100); activities include course
implementation and supervision, the organization of student
trips to Russian and East European cultural events from Chicago
to Kalamazoo, and
commenting on student response papers, fall 2008-present
Russian Club Faculty Supervisor, 2009-2010
Director of
Russian Ensemble, an extra-curricular undergraduate choir,
2009-2010
Presented introductory
remarks and led post-screening discussion of the film Ivan Vasilievich meniaet
professiiu (Ivan the Terrible Back to the Future,
directed by Leonid Gaidai, USSR, 1973) in the CSLC, April 20,
2010
Organized and facilitated Russian language students’
participation in the Annual ACTR National Post-Secondary Russian
Essay Contest, 2004-2008, 2010
Organized student trip to Chicago Lyric Opera to see
LeošJanáček’s Katya Kabanova, December 1, 2009
Presented introductory remarks and led post-screening
discussion of the film Izcheznuvshaia
imperiia (Vanished Empire, directed by Karen
Shakhnazarov, Russia, 2007) jointly with my senior thesis student Dane
Reighard in the CSLC, November 23, 2009
Organized
student trip to South Bend Symphony Orchestra concert featuring
piano soloist Gleb Ivanov
and a program of works by Rimsky-Korsakov and Rakhmaninoff,
September 26, 2009
Mentored
freshman Theresa Gaines through the Notre Dame Building Bridges
minority mentoring student program, 2008-09
Organized visiting lecture by Professor William
Brumfield of Tulane University, entitled “Pushkin’s Boldino: National Myth and
Provincial Reality in Contemporary Russia,” April 20, 2009
Organized lecture for undergraduate students by
Associate Professor David Gasperetti of the Notre Dame Russian
program, entitled “And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducting The Brothers Karamazov: Or,
Loosening Up Tied Ends,” November 12, 2008
Founder and
Co-director (with Visiting Instructor of Russian Molly Peeney)
of Russian Ensemble, Fall 2008
Panel
presentation, “Teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages in the
U.S.,” Fulbright Language Teaching
Assistant Orientation Session, University of Notre Dame, August
2008
Taught
students the ancient art of making pysanki, Ukrainian
Easter eggs, using beeswax and successive dye baths, during a
weekend session at my home, April 2008, November 2004, and April 2001
Organized
visiting lecture by Oleg Proskurin of Emory University, entitled
“Sex, Politics, and Literature
in Eighteenth-Century Russia,” November 29, 2007
Organized presentation on Ukraine and Ukrainian
culture by Penn High School exchange student Oxana Semenyuk, November 12,
2007
Orientation
Discussion Group Leader for New Notre Dame Freshmen, August
2007, 2004, 2001, and
1999
Organized
visiting lecture by Professor William Brumfield of Tulane
University, entitled “Church and Identity in Russia: The
Tikhvin-Dormition Monastery and the Return of the Tikhvin Icon of the Theotokos,” March 21,
2006
Led Russian Club study
tour of the Snite Museum exhibit Darker Shades of Red:
Official Soviet Propaganda from the Cold War,
November
2004
Organized
weekly film series, “New Directions in Russian Cinema,” which
was regularly attended by
approximately 40 members of the South Bend public, Spring 2004
Organized
concert
by the Luther College Balalaika Ensemble at Notre Dame, April
2003
Supervised Kristen Rogers in an independent study
course on Joseph Brodsky, Spring 2002
Directed a
Russian-language student production of Anton Chekhov’s one-act
play Predlozhenie (The
Marriage
Proposal), a major component of my Chekhov course, November 2001
Organized
Russian Film Festival, University of Notre Dame, Spring 2000
Organized
guest presentation of Russian folk art objects by Ludmila
Chapman of Ludmila’s Russian Treasures (located in Middlebury,
Indiana), September 2000
Departmental Service
Positions Held
Chair Designate, Department of German and Russian,
Spring 2007-Spring 2008
Committee Work
Member,
Department of German and Russian Committee on Appointments and
Promotions, Fall
2005-Spring 2010
Member,
Russian Program Learning Goals Committee, 2007-2008
Member,
Department of German and Russian Website Redesign Committee,
2007-2008
Chair,
Department of German and Russian Honesty Committee, Spring 2007
Chair,
Department of German and Russian Honesty Committee, 2003-2004
Departmental Representative to
University of Notre Dame Bookstore, 1999-2004
Program Development
Worked
closely with university librarian in charge of Russian
acquisitions to purchase large number of books on Russian art and
architecture, Fall 2009
Russian
Program Library Liaison, 2007-present
Member
of departmental focus group meeting with SLA expert John Norris
to discuss Russian program
learning goals and curricular assessment strategies, April 2008
Worked
closely with university librarian in charge of Russian
acquisitions to develop purchasing plan to fill current holding
gaps in Hesburgh Library collection of Russian literature (18th
through 21st
centuries), Summer 2006
Researched
materials
(books and audiovisuals) for new Russian Resource collection,
Summer 2004
Organized
and facilitated Russian language students’ participation in the
pilot testing of the Center for Applied Linguistics Russian
online proficiency exam, Fall 2003
Selected substantial portion of
Norwich University Russian collection for purchase by Notre
Dame’s Hesburgh
Library (over 500 volumes), Fall 2003
Initiated, researched, and
organized the Notre Dame facilitated study abroad program in
three Russian
cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir) in cooperation with
ACTR, Spring 2001
Researched
available textbooks for first- and second-year Russian language
courses; coordinated the adoption of new language textbooks and
consequent revamping of the Notre Dame Russian language curriculum, 1999-2000
Recruitment and Publicity
Oversaw development of new
German and Russian departmental website, 2007-09
Organized and prepared materials
for summer letter-writing campaign advertising Russian to incoming
Notre Dame freshmen, 2002-2009
Russian Program Web Site
Supervisor, Spring 2001-present
Expanded,
edited, and redesigned informational brochure for University of
Notre Dame Russian program,
Summer 2003
Researched
and designed three new series of posters (twenty-two posters in
all) on Careers in Russian, Russian Literary Giants, and the
Magical World of Russian Culture, for advertising Russian to prospective
students, Spring 2003
Organized and prepared materials
for spring display of 700 “table tents” advertising the Russian
program to
prospective students in campus dining halls, 2001-04
In charge of organizing and
implementing recruitment efforts on behalf of the Russian
program, which
have significantly increased enrollments in language classes,
2001-04
Spearheaded
development and design of new Department of German and Russian
website, Spring
2001
College
and University Service
Positions Held
Co-Director (with
Semion Lyandres), Program in Russian and East European Studies,
2008-2011 and 2011-2014
Faculty
Development Project Leader, College of Arts and Letters Dean’s
Office, 2009-present(this
position involves carrying out exit interviews with all
departing members of the faculty)
Executive Fellow, College
of Arts and Letters Dean’s Office, 2007-2008
Special
Projects as Executive Fellow, 2007-08
Carried
out and documented all College of Arts and Letters exit
interviews with departing faculty members,
Spring 2008
Created
the Women in Arts and Letters (WAL) web site for and about women
in the College; the site is devoted to showcasing the
accomplishments of women faculty in the College and providing
information on departmental, college, and university policies
and resources and South Bend community resources for current and
prospective female faculty (website launched in spring 2010;
http://wal.nd.edu)
Created
the Women in Arts and Letters Coming Together (WALcome)
initiative in the College; the initiative provides funding from
the Office of the Dean to organize social and professional
networking events for women faculty across the college, as well
as visiting lectures and brownbag lunchtime discussions on
topics of interest to women faculty
Committee
Work
Elected
Member, Nanovic Institute for European Studies Faculty
Committee, 2009-11
Member,
Joyce Teaching Award Committee (languages and literatures
division), Spring 2010
Elected Member, Arts and Letters
Task Force on Women and Diversity, 2007-2010 (retitled the Arts
and Letters
Advisory Committee on Women Faculty)
Member, College of Arts and
Letters Inside/Outside Award Committee, Spring 2008
Member, College of Arts and
Letters Leave Committee, Spring 2008
Member, Nanovic Institute for
European Studies Committee on Graduate Student Dissertation and
Travel and
Research Grants, Spring 2008
Chair, Gender Studies Research
Subcommittee, Spring 2008
Participant, Job Search for
Director of Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures,
Spring 2008
Member, Ad Hoc Committee of the
College Council to discuss the relationship of departments to
the Office of
International Studies in relation to study abroad, Spring 2008
Chair, Subcommittee on Retention
of Women Faculty, University Committee on Women Faculty and
Students, 2007-2008
Appointed
Member, University Committee on Women Faculty and Students,
2007-2008
Elected
Member, Gender Studies Steering Committee, Fall 2007-Spring 2008
Member,
Gender Studies Constitution Drafting Subcommittee, Fall 2007
Member,
NEH Summer Stipend Internal Selection Committee, Fall 2007
Member,
Henkels Awards Committee (Institute for Scholarship in the
Liberal Arts), Spring 2007
Elected
Member, Arts and Letters Journal Committee, Fall 2006-Spring
2009
Elected
Member, College Council (Notre Dame College of Arts and
Letters), 2005-2008
Elected
Member, College Appeals Committee, Spring 2006
Participant,
Arts and Letters Women’s Focus Group discussions, Spring 2006
Elected
Member, Gender Studies Executive Committee, Fall 2004-Spring
2007
Panel
Participant, WATCH panel on How to Achieve Tenure at Notre Dame,
November 2005
Departmental
Representative, College of Arts and Letters Webpage Redesign
Committee, 2005
Judge,
Gender Studies Program Graduate Grant Competition, Spring 2004
Service to the Profession
Outside reviewer on
a tenure case in the field of nineteenth-century Russian poetry,
fall 2011
Outside
reviewer on a tenure case in the field of Russian poetry, summer
2011
Abstract
and Panel Reviewer, Division of Literature and Culture, 2011
AATSEEL Conference, spring
and fall 2010
“Preparing for Life Beyond Graduate
School: A Distinguished Alumna’s Perspective,” workshop offered to
current Ph.D. students at my alma mater, the University of
Wisconsin-Madison Slavic Department, October 2010
Manuscript Reviewer for Focus
Publishing/R. Pullins
Company,
June 2010
Manuscript Reviewer for Wiley
Publishing, February 2010
Member of the National Endowment
for the Humanities fellowships competition Germanic and Slavic
Studies panel, Washington, D.C., July 29, 2008
Manuscript Reviewer for Slavic Review, Slavic and
East European Journal, Russian Review, and Pushkin Review (approximately
2-3 manuscripts total per year)
Member of Heldt Book Prize
Committee, AWSS (Association for Women in Slavic Studies), 2005
Abstract Reviewer: Division of
Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Conference, 2004
Member of Editorial Board: From the Other Shore:
Russian Writers Abroad Past and Present, 2001
Division
Head for Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Program Committee,
2000-2001
Assistant
Division Head for Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Program
Committee, 1999-2000
Abstract
Reviewer, Division of Twentieth-Century Russian Literature,
AATSEEL Conference, 1997
Community
Service
Brandeis University Alumni
Association Representative (conduct interviews with prospective
college
applicants to Brandeis and represent Brandeis at area college
fairs), 2008-present
Presentation on Sergei
Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky Cantata” on a faculty panel
introducing the Eisenshtein film Alexander Nevsky, in
conjunction with an upcoming South Bend Symphony concert
slated to include the Prokofiev cantata, April 9, 2008
South Bend area coordinator for
Oksana Semeniuk, FLEX program exchange student from Ukraine, and Aleksei Tikhonov, FLEX
program exchange student from Russia, 2007-2008
Representive from Sinai
Synagogue to South Bend Community Hebrew School board, 2006-2008
Teacher of adult mini-course at
Sinai Synagogue, “Writing a Jewish Self in Russian:
Russian-Jewish Writers
of the Twentieth Century,” March 22-April 5, 2006
Voluteer
Teacher, Tot Shabbat Program, Sinai Synagogue, 2005-2006
Member,
Sinai Synagogue Ad Hoc Hebrew School Reorganization Committee,
fall 2005
Coordinator,
Reorganization of Tot Shabbat Curriculum, summer 2005