Research

I am a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield, where I am working on a project on the post-war Soviet art establishment. My other research interests include contemporary Russian visual culture and representations of the environment in the Soviet Union.

My recent publications include:

• 'The Stalin Prize and the Soviet Artist: Status Symbol or Stigma?', Slavic Review, vol. 70, no. 4, 2011 (forthcoming).
• 'Aesthetic Enemies: The “Two Cultures” Theory at the Outset of the Cold War' in David Welch and Jo Fox (eds.), Justifying War (London: Palgrave, 2011) (forthcoming).
• 'An Alternative History of Soviet Visual Culture' Kritika, vol. 11, no. 3, 2010, pp. 581-608.
• ‘”A Premonition of Victory”: A Letter from the Front, Russian Review, vol. 68 (no. 3, Summer 2010), pp. 408-428.
• ‘Assailing the Monolith: Popular Responses to the 1952 All Union Exhibition’ in Art History and Criticism 3: Art and Politics: Case Studies from Eastern Europe (Vytautas Magnus University: Kaunas, 2007).
• ‘Kul’turnost’ or Kitsch: Varnishing Reality in the Art of Aleksandr Laktionov’, Studies in Slavic Cultures, VI (2007), pp. 82-106.

I am currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled 'The Art Front: Creating Socialist Realism in the Post-War Soviet Union' which deals with the lived experiences of artists, critics and audiences in the late Stalin period.