Profile
I am a Canadian scholar and teacher, originally from the birthplace of Immanuel Kant and E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a doctorate in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Toronto. I joined Queen Mary in August 2018, having previously taught at Dalhousie University, University of Nottingham, and University of Leeds. I have also taught elsewhere in Canada and the USA. I have been trained in a variety of disciplines, from linguistics and Romano-Germanic literatures to Mediaeval history and palaeography, simultaneous interpreting and Russian literature. Currently, my main research specialisms are nineteenth-century through contemporary Russian literature, with a particular emphasis on Fedor Dostoevsky and Liudmila Petrushevskaia, comparative literature (at the moment, Russian and German), as well as visual arts and contemporary Russian hybrid poetry, which is strongly linked to the early avant-garde. I have held a major postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial University as well as numerous other fellowships and small grants, and have taught across the Russian language, literature, and culture curriculum. It is a point of pride that my students continue their studies in the most competitive postgraduate programmes, and win essay competitions and study abroad awards.
Teaching
RUS 4048 Foundations in Russian Studies
RUS 4200 Russian Culture and Society
RUS 6200 Level III Russian-English translation
RUS/COM 5018 Crimes and Punishment
COM 5201 Approaches to Fairy Tales
COM 4200 Brief Encounters: Short Stories and Tall Tales.
Research
Publications
Books
Disorder and Russian Culture: From Dostoevsky to the Twenty-First Century. In preparation for
University of Toronto Press.
The Ugly in Russian Literature: Dostoevsky’s Influence on Iurii Mamleev, Liudmila Petrushevskaia,
and Tatiana Tolstaia, Köln: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010, 192 pp., ISBN: 978-3-
8383-03
Other Academic Publications:
“Notes from the Other Side of Chronotope: Dostoevsky Plagiarizing Petrushevskaia,” solicited for a
special issue, University of Exeter, work in progress
“Death and Beyond in Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s Number One, or in the Gardens of Other
Opportunities and Fedor Dostoevsky’s “Bobok: From Someone Else’s Diary” in preparation for a special issue of The Slavonic and East European Review, solicited publication, scheduled for mid-2020
“Messy Narratives of Liudmila Petrushevskaia: Dysfunctions and Dostoevsky,” under revision for
Slavic and East European Journal
“Fairy Tale Motifs and Everyday Life in El’dar Riazanov’s Irony of Fate, or Hope You
Enjoyed Your Bath! (1975),” in preparation
“Liudmila Petrushevskaia i “Bobok:” den’gi i dialogi (Liudmila Petrushevskaia and “Bobok:”
Money and Dialogues),” Dialog kul’tur i vidy mezhliteraturnogo protsessa (Dialogue of Cultures and Types of Interliterary Process), Tiumen’: Tiumen’ State University, accepted, August 2017 (solicited publication)
“Dostoevskii’s ‘The Meek One’ (Krotkaia) in the Context of Goethe’s Faust and Tropes of Time,”
Modern Language Review, 112 (2017): 459-74
“Korabl’-mogil’nik v romane Liudmily Petrushevskoi Nomer odin, ili V Sadakh drugikh
vozmozhnostei” (The Tumulus-Ship in the Novel of Liudmila Petrushevskaia Number One, or in the Gardens of Other Opportunities), Dialog kul’tur i vidy mezhliteraturnogo protsessa (Dialogue of Cultures and Types of Interliterary Process), Tiumen’: Tiumen’ State University, 2016, 120-122 (solicited publication)
“Faustovskie vechnost’ i mgnovenie v tekste povesti F.M. Dostoevskogo “Krotkaia” (Faustian Eternity and Moment in the Novella “The Meek One” by F.M. Dostoevskii), Dialog kul’tur i vidy mezhliteraturnogo protsessa (Dialogue of Cultures and Types of Interliterary Process), Tiumen’: Tiumen’ State University, 2015: 230-234 (solicited publication)
“Ugliness and Family: Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s Time: Night and Tatiana Tolstaia’s ‘Night’,” New Women’s Writing in Russia and East Central Europe: Gender, Generation, and Identities, ed. Rosalind Marsh, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012: 262-279
“Hybrid Forms in Ry Nikonova’s Poetry,” Slavic and East European Journal 2009 (53.1): 64-84
Review of W.J. Leatherbarrow, A Devil’s Vaudeville: The Demonic in Dostoevsky’s Major Fiction,
Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 2005. Canadian Slavonic Papers, 49 (1-2), March-June 2007, 144-145
“A New Russian Rafflesia from Baudelaire’s Garden: Iurii Mamleev’s Literary Origins and the Poetics of the Ugly,” Ulbandus: The Slavic Review of Columbia University 8 (2004): 47-61
“Discourse in Zapiski iz podpol’ia (Notes from Underground): Linguistic and Meta-Linguistic Elements,” the Bakhtin issue of Studies in Slavic Cultures (University of Pittsburgh) IV (2003): 68-80
“Handmade Books and Visual Poems of Sergei Sigei – a Russian Transfurist,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Winter 2002, Vol. 36 (4): 471-483
“The Canon to St. Demetrius of Thessalonica: Structure and Content,” in Annual of Medieval Studies (CEU, Budapest: Archaeolingua Foundation and Publishing House, 1999), MA thesis abstract, 100-101
Select Academic and Art Translations
Iu. Tynianov, The Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar, translation editor, Ch. 1 and Ch. 9 (section 1), Kindle edition, Look Multimedia Ltd., 2018
D. Orwin, “Zhanr Platonovykh dialogov i tvorchestvo Tolstogo,” Russkaia literatura, St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2002 (1), 38-45
D. Orwin, “Psikhologiia very v ‘Anne Kareninoi’ i v ‘Brat’iakh Karamazovykh’” in a Festschrift for L.D. Gromova-Opul'skaia, Mir filologii, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow: Nasledie, 2000, 235-245
D.A. Prigov “Tell Me How You Distinguish Between Your Friends and I Shall Tell You Who You Are” in D. Bulatov, ed., An International Anthology of Sound Poetry, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad, 2001, 318-328
D. Bulatov, ed. A Point of View. Visual Poetry: the 90s. An Anthology. June 1998, 592 pp. Selected articles; general editing
History of Visual Poetry: Experimental poetry. Königsberg/Malbork, 1996, 250 pp. Selected articles
A. Miro. Branches and Roots. Catalogue of a one-man show. Alcoi, 1996
Olga Republic. Catalogue of a one-wo/man show. Kaliningrad, 1996
“To Be a Poet So as Not To Be Him,” Passauer Pegasus
“Preodolenie kosoglaziia.” Article 1995, Netshaker
“Functional-Zaum-Activity of Text Interpreter.” YE 3 (1995), Sistig/Eifel, Germany
Visual Poetry by ... Catalogue of the International Exhibition “Word Theatre.” City History and Art Museum, Kaliningrad, 1995
Word and Fine Arts. Booklet of the International Exhibition “Word Theatre.” City History and Art Museum, Kaliningrad, 1995
Oikumena, Kaliningrad, 1995
Mail Art Show. PerfoRatio Kant. Catalogue of the International Mail Art Exhibition. The City History and Art Museum, 1994