Professor Faith Wigzell

Emeritus Professor of Russian Literature and Culture

Professor Faith Wigzell Email
f.wigzell@ssees.ucl.ac.uk

After an adult lifetime at SSEES (I arrived at the age of 18), I retired in 2004. However, as for many other academics, retirement simply presents the opportunity of spending more time on research. I remain, if not an éminence grise, then at least an Emeritus gris. I am to be found at SSEES regularly working on my research, attending seminars and other functions. Very happily, I now have the time for any postgraduate or colleague who wishes to consult me on topics relating to my areas of expertise. The rest of my life is spent catching up on the huge number of cultural opportunities presented by life in London, and travelling the world (see photo 2 below). Last but not least, I now have more time for friends and family.

Research Interests
In recent years my research has been in the areas of Russian folk belief and popular culture, as well as in folklore and its relationship with literature.

Portrait by Joseph Brodsky, Leningrad 1968

Currently I am working on a small research project, looking at professional fortune-tellers and others who reveal or correct the future in Russia today. It is based on interviews conducted in St Petersburg, but also draws on internet material. I am considering questions about the role and function of such people today in Russian society, something that draws in its wake the question of the relationship between those who correct or reveal your future and psychotherapy. I shall also examine gender aspects. Is this, as ever, part of women's culture? What role do men play in fortune-telling? Other questions are: how do fortune-tellers position themselves in the market? To what extent do they draw on pre-Revolutionary traditions (preserved through the Soviet period), or has the New Age dawned in Russia? This project is a continuation of my work on urban fortune-telling (Reading Russian Fortunes: Print Culture, Gender and Divination from 1765 (1998)). More generally, I am fascinated by the Russian interest in the future, especially as manifested in folk culture, and have written several articles on traditional obmiraniia (near-death experiences), in which the subject, whether in a coma or in a dream, visits the world beyond the grave. A longer-term plan is a general book on the Russian cultural concern with the future.

In the course of my academic career I have also worked on early Russian and Slavonic hagiography (publishing under the name Faith Kitch) and more extensively on nineteenth century Russian literature, in particular, the creative use of folk and early Russian literary motifs by various writers. I have a particular research interest in Nikolai Leskov.

Recent Publications

When in Spain...

Eat your heart out, Anna Karenina

This page last modified Thursday 24 July 2008.