Curriculum Vitae
Alyssa Dinega Gillespie
Alyssa Dinega Gillespie
2016-2021 Associate Professor of Russian, Russian Department, Bowdoin College
2005-2016 Associate Professor of Russian, Department of German and Russian, University of Notre Dame
2001-2005 Notre Dame Assistant Endowed Chair in Russian, University of Notre Dame
1999-2001 Assistant Professor of Russian, Department of German and Russian, University of Notre Dame
2017-2023 Faculty Associate, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University
2016-2020 Chair, Russian Department, Bowdoin College
2016-2019 Director, Bowdoin-Yale Mellon-Funded Collaboration in Russian, Bowdoin College
2008-2016 Co-Director, Program in Russian and East European Studies, University of Notre Dame
2002-2016 Faculty Fellow, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame
Ph.D., 1998 Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Major: Russian Literature; Minor: Polish Literature; Advisor: David M. Bethea, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature; Dissertation: “Exorcising the Beloved: Problems of Gender and Selfhood in Marina Tsvetaeva’s Myths of Poetic Genius”
M.A., 1992 Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., 1990 Brandeis University, summa cum laude
Major: English and American Literature (highest honors); Minor: Mathematics
1996 Institute of Polish Language and Culture, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
1990 Ohio State University Russian Language Program, Pushkin Institute of Russian Language Moscow, Russia
2022 Translation Fellow, National Endowment for the Arts
2014 Distinguished Faculty Fellow, University of Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (fall)
2005-2006 Faculty Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities
1997-1998 Dissertation Fellowship, Social Science Research Council
1997 Graduate Fellowship, Foreign Language and Area Studies (spring)
1996 Detling Dissertation Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison (fall)
1996 Language Study Grant, American Council of Learned Societies (summer)
1995-1996 Graduate Fellowship, Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS)
1995 Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education (spring)
1993-1994; 1991-1992 Prize Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1992 Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U. S. Department of Education [declined]
1986-89 Justice Brandeis Merit Scholarship, Brandeis University
Dangerous Verses: Alexander Pushkin and the Ethics of Inspiration, scholarly monograph (Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies series, University of Wisconsin Press) [under contract]
Pushkin, short biography treating Alexander Pushkin’s life and works (Critical Lives series, Reaktion Books) [under contract]
Azure Rapture: Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, selected and translated by Alyssa Dinega Gillespie (Russian Library series, Columbia University Press) [under contract]
Поэтическое воображение Пушкина [Pushkin’s Poetic Imagination], translated into Russian by Oxana Yakimenko, edited by Olga Barash, managing editor Kseniia Tverianovich, in the Современная западная русистика [Contemporary Western Rusistika] book series (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2021)
Marina Tsvetaeva: Po kanatu poezii [Marina Tsvetaeva: Along the Poetic Tightrope], translated into Russian by M. E. Malikova, edited by A. E. Barzakh, in the Современная русистика [Contemporary Russian Studies] book series of the Institute of Russian Literature/Pushkin House, Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia, 2015) (480 pp.) [a revised and updated Russian-language version of A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva]
Review: Iuliia Voronina, “Poeziia i gender” (review essay) in Znamia 8 (2016)
A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001) (xvii + 285 pp. [named a Choice magazine “Outstanding Academic Title” for 2001]
Reviews: Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore College, in Slavic and East European Journal 46:3 (fall 2002), 597-99; C. A. Rydel, Grand Valley State University, in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 40:1 (September 2002); Ute Stock, Newnham College, Cambridge University, in Slavonic and East European Review 81:1 (January 2003), 110-11; Gerald S. Smith, New College, Oxford University, in Slavic Review 62:2 (summer 2003), 416-17; Christopher W. Lemelin, Dickinson College, in Russian Review 62:3 (July 2003), 459-60; Natasha Kolchevska, University of New Mexico, in Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 57:2 (fall 2003), 78-80; Adam Fergus, New College, Oxford University, in Slavonica 10:1 (April 2004), 95-96; Olga Tabachnikova, University of Bath, in Journal of Gender Studies 13:1 (2004), 78-80
Reviews: Michael Wachtel, Princeton University, in Russian Review 72:1 (January 2013), 147-48; Peter Steiner, University of Pennsylvania, in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 50:6 (February 2013); Nataliia Mazur, European University at St. Petersburg, in Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 121 (March 2013), 345-51; Ivan Eubanks, Boston University, in Slavonica 19:1 (April 2013), 67-68; Anthony Briggs, University of Birmingham, in Journal of European Studies 43:3 (2013), 271-73; Catherine O’Neil, United States Naval Academy, in Slavic and East European Journal 58:1 (Spring 2014), 139-40; Leslie O’Bell, University of Texas-Austin, in Canadian Slavonic Papers 56:1-2 (March-June 2014), 161-63; James Rann, University College London, in Modern Language Review 109:2 (April 2014), 584-86; Joe Andrew, Keele University, in Slavonic and East European Review 93:2 (April 2015), 345-48; Luc Beaudoin, University of Denver, in Canadian-American Slavic Studies 49:4 (2015), 43-44
Russian Literature in the Age of Realism, vol. 277 in the series Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale Group) (xxi + 498 pp.)
“‘Vot muza, rezvaia boltun’ia…’: Poetic Form as a Window onto Pushkin’s Playful Ethical ‘Doublespeak,’” Pushkin Review 21 (2019): 35-51
“Through a Glass Darkly: Doubling and Poetic Self-Image in Pushkin’s ‘The Gypsies,’” 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
“Sidestepping 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,” special issue of Canadian-American Slavic Studies, ed. 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
“Pushkin as Camouflage: Pasternak’s Posthumous Dialogue with Tsvetaeva in Doctor Zhivago,” in Unacknowledged Legislators: Studies in Russian Literary History and Poetics in Honor of Michael Wachtel, ed. Lazar Fleishman, David M. Bethea, and Ilya Vinitsky (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020), 675-712
“The Last Stump and the Forgotten Leaf: Images of Trees in Marina Tsvetaeva’s Poetry of Identity and Alienation,” in “A Convenient Territory”: Russian Literature at the Edge of Modernity. Essays in Honor of Barry Scherr, ed. John M. Kopper and Michael Wachtel (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2015), 105-37
“Taboo and Transcendence: The Role of Secrecy in Pushkin’s Mythopoetics,” in Poetry and Poetics: A Centennial Tribute to Kiril Taranovsky, ed. Barry P. Scherr, James Bailey, and Vida T. Johnson (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2014), 39-60
“Beyond Pushkin as Dogma,” introduction to Taboo Pushkin: Topics, Texts, Interpretations, ed. Alyssa Dinega Gillespie (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 3-38
“Bawdy and Soul: Pushkin’s Poetics of Obscenity,” in Taboo Pushkin: Topics, Texts, Interpretations, ed. Alyssa Dinega Gillespie (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 185-223
“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
Reviews: Victoria Thorstensson, University of Pennsylvania, in Slavic and East European Journal 55:2 (summer 2011), 294-97
“‘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 [Polish translation of “That Distant Road, That Sadness”]
“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
“Joseph Brodsky,” in Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Part 1: Agnon-Eucken, ed. Bruccoli Clark, vol. 329 in the series Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale Group, 2007), 184-202 [expanded version of 2003 article]
“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
Emma Watson: A Ballad—libretto of an operatic work by Russian composer Sergey Konstantinov; this vocal work was composed to fit my English translation of the composer’s original Russian libretto; CD publication and live performance [forthcoming]
Four Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva (“The Sibyl,” “Two Trees,” “O Sorrow Floods My Eyes!,” “God Bent Under”), a musical composition by Mark Abel, scored for soprano with piano and English horn accompaniment; this vocal work was composed using my translations of Tsvetaeva’s poems; score published by Oceangoing Music (catalogue no. CVR 5264), 2019; CD titled The Cave of Wondrous Voice released on the Delos record label May 1, 2020
“Again I visited…” and “The Snowslide” by Alexander Pushkin, in Pushkin Review 21 (2019): 209-211
Five poems by Jewish-Russian poets (Leon Mandelstam, “The People,” Semyon Nadson, from “The Woman” and “I grew up shunning you, O most degraded nation…,” Vladislav Khodasevich, “Not my mother but a Tula peasant woman…,” “In Moscow I was born. I never…”), in Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature: An Anthology, edited by Maxim D. Shrayer (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2018)
Three Russian poems (Marina Tsvetaeva, “Garden,”; Zinaida Gippius, “There,” and Fedor Tiutchev, “There is, when autumn first sets in…”), in Cardinal Points: The Literary Journal of the Slavic Studies Department, Brown University 6, edited by Alexandra Berlina, Irina Mashinski, and Boris Dralyuk (New York: StoSvet Press, 2016): 262-66
Six poems by Russian Modernist poets (Zinaida Gippius, “She”; Nikolai Gumilev, “Giraffe”; Osip Mandelstam, “Tristia”; Marina Tsvetaeva, “Hands up—and jump…,” “Flawlessly, matchlessly life lies…,” “Dawn on the Rails”), in Russian Silver Age Poetry: Texts and Contexts, edited by Sibelan Forrester and Martha Kelly (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2015)
Polina Barskova, “Sweetness of the sweetest slumber…,” in Atlanta Review 21.2, special issue on contemporary Russian poetry edited by Alex Cigale (Spring/Summer 2015): 42
Marina Tsvetaeva, Poem of the End, in Cardinal Points Journal 4 (September 2014) and online excerpts at http://www.stosvet.net/compass/ThePoemOfTheEnd.htm
Nikolai Gumilev, “Giraffe,” in Cardinal Points Journal 4 (September 2014) and online at http://russiapedia.rt.com/compass-award-literary-contest/
Marina Tsvetaeva, “Fate does not will it that strong and strong…” (from The Two), New England Review 34.3-4 (2014): 145
Alexander Pushkin, “Again I visited…,” New England Review 34.3-4 (2014): 88-89
Marina Tsvetaeva, “Two Trees Desire to Come Together,” for the Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Prize,
http://www.stephen-spender.org/2011_brodsky_prize/2011_brodsky_third_ag.html
Eight Russian poems (by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tiutchev, A. N. Tolstoi, Gippius, Tsvetaeva, and Pasternak), in Picturing Rachmaninoff: Music, Poetry, and Painting in Concert, 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
Twenty-one poems by Russian-Jewish poets (Ilya Erenburg, Afanasy Fet, Simon Frug, Vladislav Khodasevich, Leon Mandel’shtam, Nikolay Minsky, Semyon Nadson, Arkady Shteynberg, Dmitri Tsenzor), in Anthology of Russian-Jewish Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry, 1801-2001, vol. 1, ed. Maxim D. 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
“Winter Ètude on the Death of Joseph Brodsky” and “This winter has been long…,” in Cardinal Points Journal: The Literary Journal of the Slavic Studies Department, Brown University 6, edited by Alexandra Berlina, Irina Mashinski, and Boris Dralyuk (New York: StoSvet Press, 2016): 154-56
“Aleksei Alekseevich Kharlamov, Young Woman and Child,” co-authored with Stephen Pastoriza ’19, in Art Purposes: Object Lessons for the Liberal Arts, ed. Joachim Homann (New York and London: Del Monico-Prestel, 2019)
“Three Poems, Three Melodies: Translations from the Russian,” in Cardinal Points Journal: The Literary Journal of the Slavic Studies Department, Brown University 6, edited by Alexandra Berlina, Irina Mashinski, and Boris Dralyuk (New York: StoSvet Press, 2016): 259-61
“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 AATSEEL Newsletter 46.2 (April 2003): 6-7
Michael Wachtel, A Commentary to Pushkin’s Lyric Poetry, 1826-1836. In Pushkin Review 20 (2018): 159-61
Joe Peschio, The Poetics of Impudence and Intimacy in the Age of Pushkin. In Slavic and East European Journal 58.2 (summer 2014): 325-26
Vasilii Kol’chenko, Dvuiazychie: Pesni i stikhi. In Poberezh’e: Literaturnyi ezhegodnik (Literaturovedenie-Kritika-Retsenzii-Esse-Interv’iu-Kul’tura-Iskusstvo) 21 (Philadelphia, 2012), 112
Marina Tsvetaeva, Phaedra with New Year’s Letter and Other Poems, translated by Angela Livingstone. In Russian Review 72.3 (July 2013): 502-4
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 Journal 50.4 (winter 2006): 696-8
Michael Wachtel, The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry. In 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, Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse. In 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
Founding 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); http://www.academicstudiespress.com/BookSeries.aspx (2013-present)
Forthcoming volumes:
Sibelan Forrester and Olga Partan, eds., Intelligentsia in Russia: Myth, Mission and Metamorphosis
Yevgeniy Fiks, Brian James Baer and Katherine Carl, eds., Queer(ing) Russian Art: Realism, Revolution, Performance
Volumes published to date:
Julie Draskoczy, Belomor: Criminality and Creativity in Stalin’s Gulag, 2014
Andrea Oppo, ed., The Myth of the Apocalypse in Russian Culture, 2013
English translator for Жираф [Giraffe], animated short film by Natalia Mirzoyan, Kinostudia Soyuzmultfilm (forthcoming 2021)
Creative collaboration with contemporary classical composer Mark Abel on his new chamber piece Four Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva; this vocal work was composed using my translations of Tsvetaeva’s poems, 2019
Live performance, Picturing Rachmaninoff: Music, Poetry, and Painting in Concert: on-stage readings of the original Russian versions and my new English translations of eight poems (by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tiutchev, A. N. Tolstoi, Gippius, Tsvetaeva, and Pasternak), with projected images of paintings and Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux Op. 39 performed by pianist Stephen B. Cook, University of Notre Dame (March 18, 2010)
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)
First prize, Compass Award, international poetry translation contest held under the auspices of Cardinal Points journal, for my translation of Marina Tsvetaeva’s Poem of the End (2012)
Fourth prize, Compass Award, for my translation of Marina Tsvetaeva’s “Balsams bought at thrice their value…,” from the cycle Mary Magdalene (2012)
Joint third prize, The Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Translation Competition, international poetry translation contest held under the auspices of the Stephen Spender Trust, for my translation of Marina Tsvetaeva’s “Two trees desire to come together…” (2011)
Second prize, Compass Award, for my translation of Nikolai Gumilev’s “Giraffe” (2011)
First honorable mention, Pushkin Review competition for the best English translation of Mniszek’s sonnet from Alexander Pushkin’s Boris Godunov (2007)
Dorothy B. Moyer Memorial Award for Creative Work in Languages and Literatures, Brandeis University, for my translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem The Seafarer into modern English (1989)
“Travels with the Muse: Pushkin’s Inspirational Myths,” invited two-hour senior scholar seminar, AATSEEL National Conference, San Diego, CA (February 7, 2020) [see https://www.aatseel.org/program/2021-special-events/gillespie.htm]
“Переводя Цветаеву не переводя дыхания: музыка и ритмика цветаевских стихов в английском переводе” [Translating Tsvetaeva Breathlessly: Music and Rhythm in Tsvetaeva's Verses in Translation], invited remote talk at the conference Актуальные проблемы лингвистики, лингводидактики и переводоведения [Current Problems of Linguistics, Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies], Military Engineering-Technical University, St. Petersburg, Rusia (April 22, 2021)
“The Bronze Guest behind the Door, or ‘как памятник Пушкина однады пришел к нам в гости’: Pushkinian Hauntings in Tsvetaeva’s Poetry,” invited talk at the 3rd Princeton Pushkinalia: “...Вновь я посетил...”: Pushkin in Transit, Princeton University (January 11, 2020)
“Fools, Kings, and the Poet’s Trauma,” invited talk at the 2nd Princeton Pushkinalia: Pushkin Offshore, University College of the Cayman Islands (January 11, 2019)
“‘И я бы мог как шут...’: Pushkin’s Poet as Tragic Fool,” invited talk at Two Centuries of Modern Russian Culture: From the Golden Age to Post-Soviet Space (A Symposium in Honor of David Bethea and Alexander Dolinin), University of Wisconsin-Madison (October 13, 2018)
“‘Вот муза, резвая болтунья’ (Poetic Form as a Window onto Pushkin’s Playful Ethical ‘Doublespeak’),” invited talk at the 1st Princeton Pushkinalia: Love of Poetry in the Age of Pushkin at Princeton University (April 20, 2018)
“The Poetics of Naughtiness: Reading Early Pushkin Allegorically,” Bowdoin College (December 4, 2015)
“Doctor Zhivago Talks to ‘My Pushkin’: Pushkin-Inspired Postscripts to the Tsvetaeva-Pasternak Epistolary Romance,” invited talk at Stanford Pasternak conference, organized by Lazar Fleishman, Stanford University (September 30, 2015)
“Thinking Poetically through History: Camouflage and Self-Examination in Pushkin’s Two-Layered Historical Writing,” invited talk at the conference “Literature, Society, and Religion in Modern Russia: A Symposium in Honor of Judith Kornblatt,” University of Wisconsin-Madison Slavic Department (April 21, 2013)
“Pushkin’s Gavriiliada as an Allegory of the Origins of the Poet,” Indiana University-Bloomington Slavic Department (January 19, 2012)
“Secrets, the Sacred, and Sacrilege: Pushkin’s Pursuit of Poetic Knowledge,” invited talk at the conference “Poetry and Poetics: A Centennial Tribute to Kiril Taranovsky,” Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (March 18, 2011)
“Sex, Sin, Seduction, and the Sacred: Pushkin’s ‘Gavriiliada’ as a Meditation on the Risks and Responsibilities of Being a Poet,” invited talk at Wisconsin-AATSEEL conference, Madison, Wisconsin (October 23, 2010)
“Thirsting for Angelic: Death and Reciprocity in Tsvetaeva’s Poems to Rilke,” University of Toronto (February 9, 2001)
Invitation to read my translations of Pushkin’s poetry at an evening translation event during the 3rd Princeton Pushkinalia: “…Вновь я посетил…”: Pushkin in Transit, Princeton University, January 11, 2020
Reading of my translation of Pushkin’s poem “Vnov’ ia posetil…” by acclaimed Pushkin translator Antony Wood, at a celebration of the poet’s June birthday at the Pushkin Club in London (2018)
Judge, Compass Award for translations of Russian poetry into English: Bella Akhmadulina, Boris Slutsky, Arseny Tarkovsky, and Maria Petrovykh competitions (2013-2016)
Distinguished Alumna, University of Wisconsin-Madison Slavic Department (2010)
Invited participant in International Pushkin Seminar at Oxford University (2007)
“Outstanding Academic Title for 2001” designation for my book A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva, Choice magazine (2002)
Visiting Scholar, Warsaw University; affiliations with the Institute of Polish Literature and the Institute of Russian Philology (2001)
Midwestern Regional Prize, AAASS Graduate Student Essay Contest (1998)
Polanki Award in Polish Studies, Polish Women’s Cultural Club of Milwaukee (1995)
J. Thomas Shaw Prize for best graduate student paper at Wisconsin-AATSEEL (1994)
Andrew W. Grossbardt Memorial Poetry Prize, Brandeis University (1990)
Scholar in the Humanities, Brandeis University (1989)
Phi Beta Kappa, Brandeis University, junior year induction (1989)
“Innovative Pedagogies in Teaching Nature and the Environment in Russian Culture,” on the roundtable “Reading, Writing, and Teaching Russian Nature,” ASEEES Convention, San Francisco, California (November 23, 2019)
“Reflections on the Art of Translating Poetry,” on the roundtable “Performing Poetry Translation,” ASEEES Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (December 9, 2018)
“The Bowdoin-Yale Mellon-Funded Collaboration in Russian,” at the Course Sharing for Sustainable Programs Symposium at Columbia University (April 15, 2017)
“Some Problems and Solutions in Translating Russian Poetry,” on the roundtable “Conversation with Poetry Translators,” AATSEEL Conference, San Francisco, California (February 2-5, 2017)
“A Dangerous Feminine Force: Pushkin’s Abstract Muse in the Major Works of the 1830s,” on the panel “Pushkin in the 1830s,” ASEEES Convention, Washington, D.C. (November 17-20, 2016)
“Translating Poetic Voice,” on the roundtable “Translating Voice in Slavic Literatures,” ALTA Conference, Bloomington, Indiana (October 16-19, 2013)
“Being a Bilingual Translator of Russian Poetry,” on the roundtable “The Role of Bilingualism in the Process of Translation,” ALTA Conference, Bloomington, Indiana (October 16-19, 2013)
“Historical Distance as Poetic Laboratory: Pushkin’s Experiments in Charting the Poetic Self,” on the panel “Pushkin’s Poetics of History,” AATSEEL Conference, Boston, Massachusetts (January 3-6, 2013)
“Creative Camouflage in Pushkin’s ‘Egyptian Nights,’” on the panel “Pushkin’s Muses Revisited: Inspiration, Memory, Reception,” ASEEES Convention, Los Angeles, California (November 18-21, 2010)
“Bawdy and Soul: Functions of Genital Imagery in Pushkin’s Poetics,” on the panel “The Sacred and the Profane,” at the international working conference “Alexander Pushkin and Russian National Identity,” Notre Dame, Indiana (January 9-11, 2009)
“Pushkin and the Poetics of Secrecy,” on the panel “Russian Poets and Politics,” AAASS Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (November 20-23, 2008)
“Teaching Gender through Pushkin,” on the roundtable “Teaching Pushkin: Gender, Difference, Race,” AAASS Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (November 20-23, 2008)
“The Ethical Dimension of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov,” on the panel “Reconsiderations of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, Illinois (December 27-30, 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 15-18, 2007)
“Pushkin’s Criminal Doubles,” on the panel “Art and Crime,” AAASS Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah (November 3-6, 2005)
“Pushkin and the Muse,” on the panel “The Darker Side of Pushkin,” AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (December 4-7, 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 20-23, 2003)
“Pushkin’s Poetics of Transgression,” on the panel “‘Vnov’ ia posetil’: The Pushkin Myth Revisited,” AAASS Convention, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (November 21-24, 2002)
“Along an Invisible Track: Tsvetaeva’s Poetics of Exile,” on the panel “Literature in Exile,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D. C. (December 27-30, 2000)
“Battling Aphrodite: Tsvetaeva’s Polemical Poems to Akhmatova,” British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies Convention, Cambridge, England (April 1-3, 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 27-30, 1999)
“The Russian Psyche: Tsvetaeva’s Asexual Ideal,” on the panel “Metaphysics and Sexuality,” AATSEEL Conference, San Francisco, California (December 27-30, 1998)
“Ne serdtse, a serdtsevina: Trees in the Poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva,” AAASS Convention, Boca Raton, Florida (September 24-27, 1998)
“‘Son glubok’: Writing Blo(c)k in Marina Tsvetaeva’s Stikhi k Bloku,” New England Slavic Association Annual Meeting, Medford, Massachusetts (March 27-28, 1998)
“Boris Pasternak and the Metaphysics of Rain: My Sister, Life and Doctor Zhivago,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C. (December 27-30, 1996) [in absentia]
“Music of Death: Marina Tsvetaeva and her Cruel Genius,” AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (November 15-18, 1996)
“Textual Schizophrenia in F. M. Dostoevskij’s Dvojnik: A Re-Exploration of the Problem,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, Illinois (December 27-30, 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 28-29, 1995)
“Unraveled Texts: The Problem of Return in Poems by Wallace Stevens and Osip Mandel’shtam,” AATSEEL Conference, San Diego, California (December 27-31, 1994)
Panel “Transgressions in Pushkin” (panelists: Cinzia Cadamagnani, Stephanie Richards, Amanda Murphy), ASEEES Convention, Chicago, IL (November 9-12, 2017)
Panel “The Power of Dialogues: Conversations with Europe” (panelists: Vera Proskurina, Oleg Proskurin, Igor Nemirovsky), ASEEES Convention, Washington, D.C. (November 17-20, 2016)
Panel “Revolving Perspectives: Slavic Studies through the Lens of Translation Studies and Vice Versa” (panelists: Maria Khotimsky, Julie Hansen, Susanna Witt), ASEEES Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (November 21-24, 2013)
Panel “Pushkin Translation and Adaptation” (panelists: Roger Clarke, Alisa Ballard, Michael Wachtel), at the conference “After the End of Music History: An International Conference in Honor of Richard Taruskin,” Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (February 9-12, 2012)
Panel “Re-Imagining Pushkin” (panelists: Michael Wachtel, Princeton U., Sonia Ketchian, Harvard U., and Barry Scherr, Dartmouth College), AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (November 12-15, 2009)
“Larisa Shepitko’s Film Wings, Women’s Yearning, and Cinematic Portrayals of Feminine Nostalgia,” guest lecture in Dr. Reed Johnson’s course RUS 2315 “Love, Sex, and Desire in Russian Literature and Culture” (November 26, 2020)
“Women Poets in Russian: The Poetry of Zinaida Gippius and Marina Tsvetaeva, and Translating Russian Poetry,” guest lecture in Dr. Reed Johnson’s course RUS 2315 “Love, Sex, and Desire in Russian Literature and Culture” (October 29, 2020)
“Soviet Posters Between the World Wars,” gallery conversation in the Bowdoin Museum of Art (October 3, 2017)
“The Interplay of Life and Art in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin,” Association of Bowdoin Friends, Bowdoin Book Lecture Series (December 14, 2016)
“The Capacious Muse: A Fresh Look at Pushkin’s Inspirational Myths,” Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study faculty seminar (November 19, 2014)
“Alexander Pushkin and the Ethics of Inspiration,” Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study faculty seminar (October 1, 2014)
On-stage commentator on the poems and poets for Russian Romantics: A Recital of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Art Songs, and a Conversation about Their Poetic, Pedagogical, and Performance Contexts, with pianist Nikolai Choubine and soprano Laurel Thomas, University of Notre Dame (April 16, 2014)
Q&A session, jointly with Jennifer Muñiz, Assistant Professor of Music at Indiana University South Bend, following the Met: Live in HD broadcast of Borodin’s opera Prince Igor (March 1, 2014)
“The Lay of Igor’s Campaign: The Epic Poem behind Borodin’s Opera,” on the faculty panel “The Literary, Historical, and Musical Contexts of Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor” (February 28, 2014)
Q&A session, jointly with Kevin Bartig, Assistant Professor of Musicology at Michigan State University, following the Met: Live in HD broadcast of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin (October 5, 2013)
“Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin: The Novel behind Tchaikovsky’s Opera,” on the faculty panel “The Literary, Historical, and Musical Contexts of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Shostakovich’s The Nose” (October 4, 2013)
“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 4, 2010)
“Teaching Language through Culture (and Culture through Language),” Foreign Language Council Workshop Series, University of Notre Dame (February 26, 2010)
“Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky Cantata,” on a Notre Dame 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)
“When Psyche Vanquishes Eve: Marina Tsvetaeva’s Poetics of Renunciation,” Gender Studies Forum, University of Notre Dame (October 5, 1999)
“Russian Romanticism and the Affective Turn,” ASEEES Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (December 6-9, 2018)
“Political Symbols and Russian Literature: Transgressions, Oppositions, Appropriations,” ASEEES Convention, Chicago, IL (November 9-12, 2017)
“Russian Poetry: Forms and Functions,” ASEEES Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (November 19-22, 2015)
“Soviet Pushkin,” ASEEES Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (November 21-24, 2013)
“Intersections of Life and Art in Pushkin’s Works,” ASEEES Convention, Los Angeles (November 18-21, 2010)
“Meeting Points of Life and Art in Pushkin,” AAASS Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (November 12-15, 2009)
“Taboo Topics in Russian Literary Studies: Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov,” AAASS Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana (November 15-18, 2007)
“Poetry and Poetics,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C. (December 27-30, 2000)
“Myth in Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago (December 27-30, 1999)
“Russian Modernism and the West,” AATSEEL Conference, Toronto (December 27-30, 1997)
“Generic Intersections: Poets in Prose and Prose Writers in Poetry in Russian Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C. (December 27-30, 1996)
“The Cultural Landscape of Russian Women,” AAASS Convention, Boston (November 15-18, 1996)
“Reconsiderations of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov” (sponsored by the North American Pushkin Society), AATSEEL Conference, Chicago, Illinois (December 27-30, 2007)
“Pushkin Unsainted: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations,” AAASS Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana (November 15-18, 2007)
“The Darker Side of Pushkin” (North American Pushkin Society panel), AAASS Convention, Boston (December 4-7, 2004)
“‘Vnov’ ia posetil’: The Pushkin Myth Revisited,” AAASS Convention, Pittsburgh (November 21-24, 2002)
“Russian Women’s Autobiographical Writing: Theory and Praxis,” AATSEEL Conference, New Orleans (December 27-30, 2001)
“Poetry and Poetics,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C. (December 27-30, 2000)
“Myth in Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Chicago (December 27-30, 1999)
“Portrayals of Nature in Russian Modernist Poetry,” AAASS Convention, Boca Raton (September 24-27, 1998)
“Generic Intersections: Poets in Prose and Prose Writers in Poetry in Russian Literature,” AATSEEL Conference, Washington, D.C. (December 27-30, 1996)
3rd Princeton Pushkinalia: “Вновь я посетил…”: Pushkin in Transit, Princeton University (January 10-13, 2020)
2nd Princeton Pushkinalia: Pushkin Offshore, University College of the Cayman Islands (January 11-13, 2019)
Two Centuries of Modern Russian Culture: From the Golden Age to Post-Soviet Space (A Symposium in Honor of David Bethea and Alexander Dolinin), University of Wisconsin-Madison (October 13, 2018)
1st Princeton Pushkinalia: Love of Poetry in the Age of Pushkin, Princeton University (April 20-21, 2018)
Shared Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Symposium, organized by the University of Chicago and Michigan State University (September 11, 2017)
ADFL Summer Seminar East (“Building and Sustaining Language Programs: Access, Articulation, and Advocacy”) and Pre-Seminar Workshop (“Managing Small Programs”), Georgia Institute of Technology (May 24-27, 2017)
Course Sharing for Sustainable Programs, Columbia University (April 14-15, 2017)
After the End of Music History: An International Conference in Honor of Richard Taruskin, Princeton University (February 9-12, 2012)
Poetry and Poetics: A Centennial Tribute to Kiril Taranovsky, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (March 18-20, 2011)
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)
Boris Godunov: An International Symposium, Princeton University (April 12-14, 2007)
Ideas and Power in Modern Europe: A Conference in Honor of Andrzej Walicki, University of Notre Dame (January 20-21, 2006)
Poetic Translation and Interpretation, at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, organized jointly with Carsten Dutt, Assistant Professor of German (2012-2014)
Russian and East European Studies, at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, organized jointly with Semion Lyandres, Associate Professor of History (2008-2010)
“Love, Sex, and Desire in Russian Culture,” fall semester lecture series (2019)
“The Russian Environment: Nature and Culture,” fall semester lecture series (2018)
“Russian Classics Today: Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,” spring semester lecture series (2018)
Henkels Lecture Series by David M. Bethea, Vilas Research Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (April 1-3, 2014)
“The Year of the Slavic Opera,” a year-long program of lectures, faculty discussions, films, and other events in connection with the four Slavic operas in the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcast series (2013-14)
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,” international working conference (January 9-11, 2009)
“From Pines to Сосны! A Bowdoin View from Russia,” a Zoom discussion with two Bowdoin alumni who live and work in Moscow: Evan Gershkovich ’14, Moscow Times reporter and Josh Tulgan ’95, employee of AFK Sistema, a Moscow-based investment company (May 1, 2020)
“Raising the Dead: Rock Music in Contemporary Russian Cinema,” a visiting lecture by Rita Safariants, Assistant Professor of Russian at University of Rochester (scheduled for April 16, 2020) [postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic]
“Adventures in Translating Contemporary Russian Fiction: Time Travel, Twisted Families, and Loving One's Authors,” a visiting lecture by Lisa Hayden, translator (February 25, 2020)
“Two in One: Imagination of Bisexuality in Eisenstein and Sokurov,” a visiting lecture by Evgenii Bershtein, Professor of Russian at Reed College (November 8, 2019)
“The Problem of Desire: Self-Consciousness and Self-Narration in Late Tolstoy,” a visiting lecture by Victoria Juharyan, Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian at Middlebury and Dartmouth Colleges (October 18, 2019)
“Jews and Borders,” a visiting lecture by Masha Gessen, journalist [in the Spindel Memorial Lecture Series; jointly organized with the Bowdoin College Office of Stewardship Programs] (September 19, 2019)
“What Russia Wants, and What It Means for America,” a visiting lecture by Julia Ioffe, contributing Writer for The Atlantic and former Russia correspondent for The New Yorker, and a leading authority on Russia-U.S. relations [jointly organized with Prof. Laura Henry] (April 8, 2019)
“Protecting the Pearl of Soviet Asia: Post-War Development, Conservation, and Lake Baikal,” a visiting lecture by Nicholas Breyfogle, Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University (November 15, 2018)
“Russian Artists in the Arctic: Contemporary Literary and Visual Perspectives,” a visiting lecture by Jane Costlow, Professor of Environmental Studies at Bates College (October 22, 2018)
“The Russian Environment and Social Critique: Ivan Turgenev’s Nature Writing,” a visiting lecture by Thomas Hodge, Professor of Russian at Wellesley College (September 26, 2018)
“Anna Karenina Goes to Hollywood,” a visiting lecture by Alexander Burry, Associate Professor of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at the Ohio State University (April 13, 2018)
“How an Uprising Became a Revolution, Or, What (Leading) Historical Actors Wanted Posterity to Remember About the Overthrow of Russia's Old Regime in February 1917,” a visiting lecture by Semion Lyandres, Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame (November 30, 2017)
“Gender, Race, and Radical Empathy: American Women in Revolutionary Russia, 1905-1945,” a visiting lecture by Julia Mickenberg, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, titled (November 3, 2017)
“The Short Stories of Vladimir Jabotinsky: A Poetics of Alienation” and “Lev Loseff: Poet, Son, and Exile,” two visiting lectures by Barry Scherr, Professor of Russian at Dartmouth College (April 5 and 7, 2016)
“Dostoevsky and the Catholic Underground,” a visiting lecture by Elizabeth Blake, Assistant Professor of Russian at Saint Louis University (February 9, 2016)
“Borodin’s opera Prince Igor,” a pre-opera talk by Jennifer Muñiz, Assistant Professor of Music at Indiana University South Bend, on Alexander (March 1, 2014)
“The Literary, Historical, and Musical Contexts of Borodin’s Prince Igor,” a pre-opera faculty panel (February 28, 2014)
“Poetry, Performance, Political Resistance, and Mass Spectacle in the 1960s Soviet Union,” a visiting lecture by Donald Loewen, Associate Professor of Russian and Assistant Provost at SUNY-Binghamton (February 13, 2014)
“Sentimental and Fantastic: Two Ways to Move Russian Literary Classics into Opera (Eugene Onegin and The Nose)” and “The Catholic Muse in Russian Émigré Music: Arthur Lourie and Jacques Maritain,” two visiting lectures by Caryl Emerson, A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University (November 4 and 5, 2013)
“Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin,” a pre-opera talk by Kevin Bartig, Assistant Professor of Musicology at Michigan State University (October 5, 2013)
“The Literary, Historical, and Musical Contexts of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Shostakovich’s The Nose,” a pre-opera faculty panel (October 4, 2013)
“Patterns of Mass Culture and Mass Consciousness in Russia: Post-Soviet Dynamics (1990s-2010s),” a visiting lecture by Andrey Miroshnichenko, Fulbright-Kennan Institute research scholar and Moscow-based media analyst, consultant, and commentator (February 7, 2013)
“Pushkin’s Boldino: National Myth and Provincial Reality in Contemporary Russia,” a visiting lecture by Professor William Craft Brumfield, Professor of Russian at Tulane University (April 20, 2009)
“And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducting The Brothers Karamazov: Or, Loosening Up Tied Ends,” a lecture for undergraduate students by David Gasperetti, Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Notre Dame (November 12, 2008)
“Politics, Sex, and Literature in Eighteenth-Century Russia: The Institution of Favoritism in the Mirror of Mock Poetry,” a visiting lecture by Oleg Proskurin, Visiting Faculty at Emory University (November 29, 2007)
“Church and Identity in Russia: The Tikhvin-Dormition Monastery and the Return of the Tikhvin Icon of the Theotokos,” a visiting lecture by William Craft Brumfield, Professor of Russian at Tulane University (March 21, 2006)
“Survival of the Catchiest: Memes and Post-Modernism in Postsoviet Russia,” a visiting lecture by Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian at New York University (March 18, 2004)
“Scared into Selfhood: Lisnianskaia, Shvarts, Sedakova,” a visiting lecture by Stephanie Sandler, Professor of Russian at Amherst College and Harvard University (April 10, 2000)
“Russian Women Poets in Song,” a concert featuring soprano Olga Lisovskaia and pianist George Lopez, with contralto Stephanie Kacoyanis, in a program of settings by Russian and western composers of musical poems by Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva (scheduled for March 29, 2020) [postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic]
“Exploring Serbia through Dance and Song,” a dance performance by Boston-based Serbian dance ensemble Grachanitsa (November 16, 2019)
“Alexander Pushkin in the Music of Russian Romanticism: A Concert of Russian Art Songs on Pushkin Texts” by soprano Sarah Pelletier and pianist Francine Kay, with Yasmin Vitalius (violin) and Eliza Meyer (cello) (September 14, 2018)
“Mining the Russian Soul: Musical Characteristics and Discovery in Recital Preparation,” a musical lecture/demo with Sarah Pelletier and Francine Kay (September 13, 2018)
“A Musical Journey Across Russian Traditions,” a concert by the ensemble Zolotoj Plyos (more than 30 folk instruments, vocals, dance) (March 26, 2018)
Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, performed by the Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre in Moscow, a screening produced by StageRussia (March 1, 2018)
Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, performed by the Satirikon Arkady Raikin State Theatre in Moscow, a screening produced by StageRussia (February 15, 2018)
Concert by the New York Balalaika Duo (balalaika, garmoshka, vocals) (September 16, 2017)
Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a choreographic interpretation, performed by the Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre in Moscow, screening produced by StageRussia (April 2, 2017)
Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, performed by the Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow, a screening produced by StageRussia (January 29, 2017)
Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, a dramatic interpretation, performed by the Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre in Moscow, a screening produced by StageRussia (December 4, 2016)
Founding director of Russian Ensemble, student vocal performance group (2009-2010, 2012-14)
Maintained a calendar of area Russian and East European-related cultural events (fall 2008-14)
Concert by GOLOS, the Chicago-based Russian folk music ensemble (March 31, 2012)
Student trip to Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov; also organized faculty presentations on the opera’s historical, musical, and literary background during the bus ride to Chicago (November 11, 2011)
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)
Student trip to Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Leoš Janáček’s opera Katya Kabanova (December 1, 2009)
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)
Led Pysanki (Ukrainian Easter eggs) art workshops at my home (April 2008, November 2004, April 2001)
“Ukraine and Ukrainian culture,” a presentation by Penn High School exchange student Oxana Semenyuk (November 12, 2007)
Directed a Russian-language student production of Anton Chekhov’s one-act play Предложение (The Marriage Proposal), a major component of my Chekhov course, November 7, 2001
“New Directions in Russian Cinema,” a weekly film series, Spring 2004
Luther College Balalaika Ensemble concert, April 12, 2003
Russian Film Festival, Spring 2000
“Russian folk art objects,” a guest presentation by Ludmila Chapman of Ludmila’s Russian Treasures in Middlebury, Indiana (September 14, 2000)
Russian Language
Elementary Russian I (fall 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)
Elementary Russian II (spring 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
Russian Literature and Culture Taught in English
One Thousand Years of Russian Culture (fall 2016, spring 2020)
Post-Soviet Russian Cinema (spring 2017, 2019)
Rebels, Workers, Mothers, Dreamers: Women in Russian Art and Literature Since the Age of Revolution (fall 2017)
Nature and the Environment in Russian Culture (fall 2018)
Russian Literature and Culture Taught in Russian
Pushkin (fall 2019)
Additional Courses
Introduction to Translation Theory, and Practicum in Translating 19th-Century Russian Poetry, advanced independent study (spring 2020)
Russian Language
Beginning Russian I (fall 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012)
Beginning Russian II (spring 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013)
Advanced Russian I (fall 2009, 2013)
Advanced Russian II (spring 2010, 2014)
Russian Literature and Culture Taught in English
Post-Soviet Russian Cinema (spring 2004, fall 2008, spring 2012, spring 2014)
Women in Russian Literature (spring 2013)
One Thousand Years of Russian Culture (fall 2009, fall 2012)
Russian Literature and Culture Taught in Russian
Russian Romanticism (fall 2003, spring 2007, fall 2013)
Pushkin (fall 2000, spring 2009, fall 2011, spring 2016)
Chekhov (fall 2001)
Introduction to Russian Poetry (spring 2000)
A Space for Speech: Russian Women Memoirists (spring 2001)
Literary and Interdisciplinary Seminars
Single and Double Selves (Sophomore Interdisciplinary College Seminar) (fall 2011, spring 2016)
Russian Literature and the Arts through History (Freshman Seminar) (fall 2000, 2004)
Chasing the Troika: Russia’s Literary Search for Self (Freshman Seminar) (fall 1999)
Additional Courses
Russian and East European Studies Cultural Enrichment (fall 2008-spring 2014)
Heritage Russian, independent study (fall 2012)
Joseph Brodsky, directed readings course (spring 2002)
Shandiin Largo, “Exploring Russian Colonial Identities through a Native American Lens” (summer 2020)
Augustus Gilchrist, “Mazepa’s Whiskers: The Ukrainian Body and the Imperial Poet in Pushkin’s Poltava” (fall 2019)
Augustus Gilchrist, “‘The Happiness that Redeems the Bitterness of Previous Pages’: Mikhail Zoshchenko and the 19th-Century Russian Canon” (summer 2019)
Stephen Pastoriza, “Images of Women in the Works of Ivan Turgenev and Aleksei Kharlamov,” for honors in the Russian major (2018-2019) [post-graduation placement: Private Equity Analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, New York City]
Kellie Travis, “Beasts, Wolves, and Golden-Eye Ducks: Suicide as a Response to Dehumanization in the Soviet Gulag,” for honors in the Russian major (2013-2014) [post-graduation placement: Vanderbilt University Law School]
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 (2011-2012) [post-graduation placement: English teacher in Moscow, Russia]
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 (2010-2011) [post-graduation placement: M.A. student in Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Duke University]
Dane Reighard, “Translation with Commentary of Rashel Khin’s Drama Under the Protection of the Penates,” for honors in the Russian major (2009-10) [post-graduation placement: Ph.D. program in Russian Literature, Slavic Department, UCLA]
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 (2008-2009) [post-graduation placement: M.A. program in Russian Studies, University College London]
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 (2008-2009) [post-graduation placement: Ph.D. program in Russian Literature, Slavic Department, The Ohio State University]
Megan McClain, “Ties that Bind: Romance, Disillusionment, and Captivity in Russian Literature of the Caucasus,” for honors in the Russian major (2006-2007) [post-graduation placement: Columbia University Law School]
Rose Lindgren, “Sveta: A Fictional Account of the Truth about Sexual Trafficking,” for the European Studies minor (2003-2004) [post-graduation placement: University of Edinburgh MSc program in International and European Politics]
Zenovia Lockhart, “The Poetic Successor as Chronicler: Bella Akhmadulina’s Relationship to Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova,” for the Russian and East European Studies minor (2000-2001) [post-graduation placement: Ph.D. program in Russian Literature, Slavic Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison]
Stephen Pastoriza, “Images of Women in the Works of Ivan Turgenev,” The UC Undergraduate Journal of Slavic and East/Central European Studies, vol. 12 (2020-21) https://www.international.ucla.edu/media/files/pastoriza_vol_13-is-mxw.pdf
Presentation on Alexander Pushkin’s historical drama Boris Godunov during student bus trip to see Chicago Lyric Opera performance of the Modest Mussorgsky opera based on the play (November 11, 2011)
Introductory remarks and post-screening discussion of the film Иван Васильевич меняет профессию (Ivan the Terrible Back to the Future), directed by Leonid Gaidai, USSR, 1973 (April 20, 2010)
Introductory remarks and post-screening discussion of the film Исчезнувшая империя (Vanished Empire), directed by Karen Shakhnazarov, Russia, 2007 (November 23, 2009)
“Teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages in the U.S.,” Panel presentation for the Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant Orientation Session, University of Notre Dame (August 14, 2008)
Russian Language study tour of the Snite Museum exhibit Darker Shades of Red: Official Soviet Propaganda from the Cold War (September 22, 2004)
Organized and led a group trip with 6 student participants to explore Russian culture in and around New York City (March 6-9, 2020), including the following:
Tour of the Museum of Russian Icons and Ballets Russes photo exhibit in Clinton, MA
Curated visit to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
Morning liturgy at St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral
Private collection of Ballets Russes costume designs by Bakst, Benois, Goncharova and other artists
Tenement Museum, Sweatshop Workers Tour
Walking tours of the Lower East Side, Midtown Manhattan, and Brighton Beach
Vist to the Pickle Guys store
Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories at the Mint Theater
Non-conformist Soviet art at the Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University
Concert by Lev Leshchenko
Russian art works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Meals of Central Asian, Ukrainian, and Georgian restaurants
Student trip to Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake by the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, HD Broadcast at Regal 10 Cinema in Brunswick (February 23, 2020)
Student trip to Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland, performed by the National Ballet Theater of Odessa (February 19, 2020)
Co-organizer of “A Multilingual Poetry Evening” and mentored and coached three Russian language student participants (November 7, 2019)
Annual ACTR National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest, organized and facilitated Russian language students’ participation (2017-2020)
Russian Club Faculty Supervisor (2016-2020)
Facilitated pen pal exchanges for Russian language students with English language students at several universities in Russia (2017-2019)
Russian Club Faculty Supervisor (2009-2010, 2013-2014)
Discussion group on teaching German and Russian in the U.S., Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant orientation (August 2009, 2010, 2011)
Annual ACTR National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest, organized and facilitated Russian language students’ participation (2004-2008, 2010)
Orientation Discussion Group Leader for incoming freshmen (August 2007, 2004, 2001, 1999)
“Roundtable on Teaching Russian Online,” American Council for Teachers of Russian webinar (March 17, 2020)
“Особенности проведения онлайн-занятий РКИ” [Peculiarities of teaching Russian as a Foreign Language Online], American Council for Teachers of Russian webinar (March 15, 2020)
“Remote Learning and Teaching Tools Workshop”; “Performance-Based Courses Online Workshop”; “Discussion-Based Courses Online Workshop”; “Teaching Foreign Languages Online Workshop,” Bowdoin College Continuity of Learning and Teaching workshops (March 2020)
“Responding to Student Writing,” Bowdoin College Center for Learning and Teaching Faculty Workshop (March 5, 2019)
“Teaching and Learning Across Cultural Strengths,” Bowdoin College Center for Learning and Teaching Faculty Workshop (May 29, 2018)
“Active Learning: Beyond the Visit (Active Learning, Course Design, Learning Outcomes),” Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Workshop at the Bowdoin Museum of Art and Portland Museum of Art (June 5, 2017)
“Writing Your Next Chapter,” workshop for Associate Professors, facilitated by the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development at Colby College (May 18, 2017)
“Teaching What You Don’t Know,” workshop led by Therese Huston, University of Notre Dame Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning (May 16, 2012)
“Teaching Culture Workshop,” University of Notre Dame Foreign Language Council Workshop Series (February 26, 2010)
“Oral Proficiency Workshop,” University of Notre Dame Foreign Language Council Workshop Series (April 30, 2009)
“Gender and Teaching,” University of Notre Dame Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning (March 13, 2008)
“Assessment and Evaluation in the Languages and Literatures,” workshop series led by Professor Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro, University of Iowa, and Professor John M. Norris, University of Hawaii (May 4-5, 2007)
“Teaching Film across the Humanities,” faculty workshop led by University of Notre Dame film professor Jim Collins (May 22-25, 2006)
Editorial board member, The Unknown Nineteenth Century book series, Academic Studies Press, series editor Joe Peschio (2012-present)
Editorial board member, Canadian-American Slavic Studies (2012-present)
Book proposal reviewer, Myths and Taboos in Russian Culture book series, Academic Studies Press (2013-present)
Abstract reviewer, Division of Literature and Cultural Studies, AATSEEL Conference (2018)
Manuscript reviewer, book-length translation proposal to Columbia University Press (2018)
External reviewer, Macalester College Russian Studies Department (Feb. 19-20, 2018)
Article manuscript reviewer for Slavic Review, Slavic and East European Journal, Russian Review, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Pushkin Review, Slavonica Iaponica Acta, average of 2-3 manuscripts per year (2000-present)
Judge, Compass Translation Award, Bella Akhmadulina, Boris Slutsky, Arseny Tarkovsky, Maria Petrovykh competitions (2013-2016)
Book manuscript reviewer for the University of Wisconsin Press (2015)
Internal reviewer on a case for promotion to Full Librarian (2014)
Presenter, roundtable on interviewing for current Slavic job market candidates, AATSEEL National Conference, Chicago, Illinois (January 9-12, 2014)
Translation project proposal reviewer, National Endowment for the Arts (2013)
Outside reviewer on a case for promotion to full professor in the field of Russian musicology (2013)
Outside reviewer on a tenure case in the field of nineteenth-century Russian poetry (2011)
Outside reviewer on a tenure case in the field of twentieth-century Russian poetry (2011)
Abstract and panel reviewer, Division of Literature and Culture, AATSEEL Conference (2010-11)
“Preparing for Life Beyond Graduate School: A Distinguished Alumna’s Perspective,” workshop offered to current Ph.D. students at my alma mater, University of Wisconsin-Madison Slavic Department (October 22, 2010)
Manuscript reviewer, proposed new Introductory Russian textbook, for Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (2010)
Manuscript reviewer, 2nd revised edition of Marita Nummikoski, Troika: A Communicative Approach to Russian Language, Life and Culture, for John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2010)
Book proposal reviewer, Germanic and Slavic Studies panel, National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships competition, Washington, D.C. (July 29, 2008)
Heldt Book Prize Committee member, Association for Women in Slavic Studies (2005)
Abstract reviewer, Division of Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Conference (2004)
Editorial board member, From the Other Shore: Russian Writers Abroad Past and Present (2001)
Division head, Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Program Committee (2000-2001)
Assistant division head, Theory and Special Topics, AATSEEL Program Committee (1999-2000)
Abstract reviewer, Division of Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, AATSEEL Conference (1997)
Russian Department Chair (July 2016-June 2020)
Member, Bowdoin Museum of Art Advisory Council (2019-2020)
Search Committee Chair, Visiting Lecturer in Russian (Spring 2020)
Search Committee Chair, Lecturer in Russian (Spring 2019)
Member, Summer Working Group on Foreign Languages (July 19-20, 2017)
Search Committee Chair, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Russian (Spring 2017)
Director, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Bowdoin-Yale Collaboration in Russian (July 2016-2019)
Director, Russian Revolution Centennial Project, in partnership with the Bowdoin Art Museum (December 2016-May 2018)
Account manager, Bowdoin Russian Instagram (2018-2021)
Page manager, Bowdoin Russian Facebook (2016-2021)
Website manager, Bowdoin Russian Department (2016-2021)
Designed, wrote, and edited issue no.2 of Записки из подполья (Notes from Underground), annual Russian Department newsletter (June 2020)
Pioneered, designed, wrote, and edited issue no.1 of Записки из подполья (Notes from Underground), annual Russian Department newsletter (June 2019)
Rewrote, redesigned, reconceptualized, and vastly expanded Russian Departmet website in conjunction with College-wide overhaul of Bowdoin’s web presence (summer and fall 2018)
Established and organized Russian Department library book collection (summer 2018)
Revised Russian and interdisciplinary EEES majors (spring 2017)
Positions Held
Departmental Committee on Appointments and Promotions (2005-2010, 2012-2014)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2014)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2013)
Chair Designate, Department of German and Russian (Spring 2007-Spring 2008)
Russian Program Learning Goals Committee (2007-2008)
Russian Program Website Redesign Committee (2007-08)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2007)
Chair, Department of German and Russian Honesty Committee (Spring 2007, 2003-04)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2006)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2005)
Search Committee, Visiting position in Russian (Summer 2003)
Activities
Page manager, Russian@NotreDame Facebook (2013-2016)
Library liaison, Russian program (2007-2016)
Organized and prepared materials for summer letter-writing campaign advertising Russian to incoming freshmen (2002-2009)
Website manager, Russian program (2001-2013)
Departmental representative to University of Notre Dame Bookstore (1999-2004)
Organized and prepared materials for spring display of 700 table tents advertising the Russian program to prospective students in campus dining halls (2001-04)
Facilitated student participation in pilot testing of the Center for Applied Linguistics Russian online proficiency exam (Fall 2003)
Wrote and designed new Russian program promotional brochure (Summer 2003)
Designed 22 posters on Careers in Russian, Russian Literary Giants, and the Magical World of Russian Culture, for advertising Russian to prospective students (Spring 2003)
Initiated Notre Dame’s cooperation with ACTR study programs in Russia (Spring 2001)
Spearheaded development and design of new departmental website (Spring 2001)
Coordinated adoption of new language textbooks and revamping of Notre Dame Russian language curriculum (1999-2000)
Positions Held
Co-Director (with Professor of History Semion Lyandres), Program in Russian and East European Studies (2008-2016)
Faculty Development Project Leader, College of Arts and Letters Dean’s Office (this position involved conducting and documenting exit interviews with all departing members of the faculty), 2009-2012
Executive Fellow, College of Arts and Letters Dean’s Office (2007-2008)
Special projects as Dean’s Executive Fellow:
Revamped exit interview process for departing faculty in the College of Arts and Letters
Conducted and documented exit interviews with all departing faculty members of the College of Arts and Letters (Spring 2008)
Created the Women in Arts and Letters Coming Together (WALcome) initiative, which provided 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
Created the Women in Arts and Letters website; the site showcases the accomplishments of women faculty in the College and provides 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)
Committee Work
Selection Committee, Phi Beta Kappa (Spring 2014)
Faculty Committee, Nanovic Institute for European Studies (2009-2011, 2012-2014)
Listening and Advisory Committee for a New School of International Affairs (Fall 2013)
Chair, Cronin Essay Prize Committee, Program in Liberal Studies (March 2013)
Selection Committee, Joyce Teaching Award (languages and literatures division) (Spring 2010)
Arts and Letters Task Force on Women and Diversity (2007-2010)
Award Committee, College of Arts and Letters Inside/Outside (Spring 2008)
Leave Committee, College of Arts and Letters (Spring 2008)
Selection Committee, Graduate Student Dissertation and Travel and Research Grants, Nanovic Institute for European Studies (Spring 2008)
Chair, Gender Studies Research Subcommittee (Spring 2008)
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)
University Committee on Women Faculty and Students (2007-2008)
Steering Committee, Gender Studies Program (2007-2008)
Constitution Drafting Subcommittee, Gender Studies Program (Fall 2007)
Internal Selection Committee, NEH Summer Stipend (Fall 2007)
Henkels Awards Committee, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (Spring 2007)
Arts and Letters Journal Committee (Fall 2006-Spring 2009)
College Council, College of Arts and Letters (2005-2008)
Appeals Committee, College of Arts and Letters (Spring 2006)
Participant, College of Arts and Letters Women’s Focus Group discussions (Spring 2006)
Executive Committee, Gender Studies Program (Fall 2004-Spring 2007)
Departmental Representative, College of Arts and Letters Webpage Redesign Committee (2005)
Presenter, How to Achieve Tenure at the University of Notre Dame, panel sponsored by WATCH (Women Faculty Action Committee) (November 2005)
Selection Committee, Gender Studies Program Graduate Student Grant Competition (Spring 2004)
Teacher of adult mini-course for the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s adult education collaboration, Shalom Maine: “Jewish Voices in Russian Literature” (June-July 2019) [course cancelled by the JCA due to low enrollment]
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)
South Bend area coordinator for Oksana Semeniuk, FLEX program exchange student from Ukraine, and Aleksei Tikhonov, FLEX program exchange student from Russia (2007-08)
Member, Sinai Synagogue Education Committee (2003-2006)
Member, Sinai Synagogue Educational Director Search Committee (Spring 2004)
Guest speaker, “Russian History and Culture,” 6th grade class, Marshall Elementary School, South Bend, Indiana (March 2002)
English: native. Russian: near-native (reading, writing, speaking). Polish: advanced reading ability, low-intermediate speaking and writing abilities. Ukrainian: advanced reading ability, novice speaking ability. German: intermediate reading ability.
American Literary Translators’ Association (ALTA) (2013-present)
North American Pushkin Society (NAPS) (2003-present)
American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) (2003-present; lifetime member)
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES/AAASS) (1995-present; lifetime member)
Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) (1995-present)
American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) (1994-present; lifetime member)
Last updated: July 2022