Dr Seth Graham

Lecturer in Russian

Email
s.graham@ssees.ucl.ac.uk

Phone Number
020 7679 8735

Fax
020 7679 8777

I was born near the banks of the Hudson River in Troy, New York in 1968. I began studying Russian in 1986 at the University of Texas at Austin, where I also developed interests in juggling, puns, and barbecue. I first visited the USSR in 1989 as a 'citizen diplomat' on a trip organised by United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War, and have made many trips to Russia since, including two year-long sojourns in Moscow in 1992-93 and 1998-99.

I completed my PhD in Russian literature at the University of Pittsburgh in 2003. The title of my thesis is A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot, which I wrote under the sagacious supervision of Dr Nancy Condee. I subsequently taught at the University of Washington, Seattle (2003-2004) and held a post-doctoral Humanities Fellowship at Stanford University (2004-2006) before joining SSEES as a Lecturer in Russian in September 2006.

I have a keen extra-curricular interest in Russian popular music, which I indulge by organising student sing-a-longs and occasional performances.

I often use a walking stick because I have an artificial knee, the result of a 1982 baseball injury.

Research Interests
My current interests are contemporary Russian and Soviet culture (especially film), cultural studies, gender studies, humour theory, Central Asian film, and language pedagogy.

After dabbling in the 19th century (Gogol) and early-20th century (Bely) at the University of Texas, I began to focus my research on late-Soviet and post-Soviet Russian culture as a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s. I have published articles and chapters on literature, film, and humour in Russian Review, The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Studia Filmoznawcze, and in several essay collections. My monograph, Russkii anekdot v kontekste, will be published in 2007 by O.G.I. Press in Moscow. I am co-editor (with Olga Mesropova) of Uncensored? Reinventing Humor and Satire in Post-Soviet Russia (Slavica, 2007, forthcoming). I have also done quite a bit of translating from Russian, including Valeria Narbikova's experimental novel Day Equals Night and subtitles for Nikita Mikhalkov's forthcoming film Twelve Angry Men.

Teaching and supervision

• Russian Short Prose
• Representations of Russia
• Use of Russian 1A: Grammar
• Ire, Irony, Ideology: Satire and Humour in Russian Culture (MA seminar)
• Gender and Sexuality in Modern Russian Culture (MA seminar)
• Contemporary Cultural Studies: Between Post-Communism and Post-Modernism (MRes seminar, co-taught with Polly Jones, Tim Beasley-Murray, and Maria Rubins)

Recent Publications

Links

Russian Film Symposium

Kinokultura

This page last modified Thursday 1 October 2009.