Position: Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Chair
Teaching interests: Russian intellectual history ("Main Currents of Russian Thought"); Slavic folklore and mythology; Russian symbolism; modern Russian poetry; Soviet literature; the Devil in Russian and European culture; the 18th century; Andrei Belyi; Mikhail Bulgakov; Russian art and culture; interdisciplinary studies.
Research interests: Russian cultural and intellectual history (18–21st centuries) and non-Marxist thought; Russian occult movements and speculative mysticism, current and retrospective; East Slavic folklore, Slavic mythology, Russian neo-paganism; Literature, thought, and culture of the Russian Silver Age (1885–1922), with comparative European dimension; the work of Andrei Bely (1880–1934); folklore, mythology, and neo-paganism.
Selected recent publications and presentations
2008 encyclopedia article: "Blavatskaia, Elena Petrova." Forthcoming in The Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Oxford University Press.
2007 encyclopedia article: "de Roberti (De Roberti de Kastro de la Serda), Evgenii Valentinovich (1843–1915; also: Eugène de Roberty). Neo-positivist philosopher, sociologist." For Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian History (MERSH).
2007 review: Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, by Stefan Arvidsson. Translated by Sonia Wichmann. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. In: Folklorica; Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association 12. Also: "A More Detailed Look at Stefan Arvidsson’s Aryan Idols."
2006 lecture: "The Alphabet of the Magi and 'The Word' Made Text in Andrei Belyi's Silver Dove," for the Princeton University Colloquium on Magic. Princeton, NJ, 8 May.
2006 review: New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism, by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Cornell University Press: 2002. In: Slavic and East European Journal 50:2 , 358–359.
2005 article: "Theosophy and History in Andrei Belyi's Peterburg: Life in the Astral City." Russian Literature 58, 29–45.
2005 conference presentation: "The Occult, the New Paganism, and the Political Right in Russia: Lessons from the Book of Veles." VII International Congress of ICCEES (International Council for Central and East European Studies), Berlin. 26 July.
2003 essay: "Old Battles, New Challenges." In NewsNet: News of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. 43:5 (October), 2–3. (Series: Regional Studies in the Twenty-First Century)
1997 article: "Fashionable Occultism: Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Hermeticism in Fin-de-siecle Russia," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Edited by B.G. Rosenthal. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 135–152.
1996 article: "Gnostic Elements in the Cosmogony of Vladimir Solov'ev," in Russian Religious Thought. Edited by Richard Gustafson and Judith Kornblatt. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 49–67.
1993 book: 'No Religion Higher Than Truth': A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875–1922. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 310 pp.
Selected Awards and Recognitions
AATSEEL [American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages] National Award for Excellence in Post-Secondary Teaching, 29 December 2005
Keeler Intra-University Professorship, Spring 2004
Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award, awarded by the KU Center for Teaching Excellence, May 2003
Visiting Professorship, Duke University, Spring 2001
Distinguished Service Award for Academic Leadership in International Studies, awarded by the Board of
Directors of the International Relations Council, Kansas City, MO, 6 December 2000
Selected Grants Held
External: IREX, Fulbright, NEH, SSRC
Internal: Hall Center for the Humanities
Institutional: US Department of Education; SSRC; USIA
