Irina Erman, Ph.D. - Chair
Assistant Professor of Russian, Director of Russian Studies
I specialize in 19th and 20th century Russian literature and literary theory. My Ph.D. dissertation analyzed autobiographers’ staging of the relationship between self and other, primarily focusing on the works of Vasily Rozanov, a turn-of-the-century Russian modernist writer. I have published articles on autobiography and vampire literature, but my main research focus is Fyodor Dostoevsky. I am currently at work on a book manuscript that deals with performance and theatrical spaces in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s early works.
Students who have taken my classes will tell you that I also have a poorly concealed fascination with popular culture, terrible movies, and fake autobiographies. My interest in the interaction between “low” and “high” culture led me to develop a course on vampires, which is offered annually as RUST 250. Other than vampires, my teaching focuses on: Dostoevsky and 19th century literature, modernism, autobiography, film, Russian theater and performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, and 20th century Russian literature.
Education
Stanford University
M.A., Ph.D.
Emory University
B.A. Summa Cum Laude
Courses Taught
RUSS 101 and 102
RUSS 201 and 202
RUSS 390: Special Topics in Russian
LTRS 210: 19th Century Russian Literature
LTRS 220: 20th Century Russian Literature
LTRS 270: Studies in Russian Film
RUST 300: Gender and Sexuality in Russian Culture
Publications
"'Husband Under the Bed': Cuckoldry, Logorrhea and Confined Spaces in Dostoevsky's Early Works," Russian Review 76:2 (April 2017), 311-330
Review of Deborah Martinsen and Olga Maiorova (eds). Dostoevsky in Context. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015) in The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 46.1 (March 2019), 171-174
“Nation and Vampiric Narration in Aleksey Tolstoy’s ‘The Family of the Vourdalak’,” The Russian Review 79 (January 2020), 7-27
Review of “Alexander Spektor The Reader as Accomplice,” in The Russian Review 80:2 (April 2021), 316-318
“Sympathetic Vampires and Zombies With Brains: The Modern Monster as a Master of Self-Control,” The Journal of Popular Culture 54:3 (June 2021)
Conference Presentations
“How a Man Killed His Wife: Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Dead House,” AATSEEL Annual Convention, 2019
“Diminution, Repetition, and Decomposition in Dostoevsky’s Poor Folk and ‘Bobok’,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2018
“Stage Curtains and Their Role in Dostoevsky’s Performative Poetics,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2017
“The Specter of Achilles and the Spectacle of Svidrigailov’s Suicide in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment,” AATSEEL Annual Convention, 2017
“Footnotes Fetish: Textuality and Sexuality in Vasily Rozanov’s Typographical Performance Art,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2016
“Bombing at the Theater: Violence, Performance and Narrative Rupture in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Works,” Narrative 2016: The Annual Conference for the International Society for the Study of Narrative
“Nation and Vampiric Narration in Aleksey Tolstoy’s ‘The Family of the Vourdalak’,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2015
“Overeating: Rozanov’s Grotesque Autobiographical Intertextuality,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2014
“Staging Domestic Spaces: Dom and Discourse in Dostoevsky’s Works,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2012
“I’ve got ‘Your Pushkin’ right here! Imitation, performative kenosis, and the model of the Russian writer,” ASEEES Annual Convention, 2010