Lena Vassileva

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Lena came to the department in September 2001 after completing an MA in history at Central European University (Budapest) and an MPhil in gender and culture awarded in collaboration by CEU and Open University (London). As part of her work for the MPhil she worked at the University of Oxford (UK) under the supervision of Dr Catriona Kelly, where she focused on Soviet unofficial organizations that focused on women’s issues. Her broader research interests lie in the cross-sections of film and ideology, gender and gay studies as well as post-colonialism.

Lena’ teaching appointments while at USC have included Russian, beginning and advanced as well as teaching assistantships for Arts and Letters courses “Political Violence in Russian Culture”, “Rhetoric of Violence in Euopean Revolutions” and an upper division session of “Russian Thought and Civilization”.

After successful completion of her qualifying doctoral exam in May 2005 she was awarded USC Provost’s fellowship for digial scholarship. Vassilieva is one of the first three recipients of the scholarship that aims to foster innovative approaches to academic publishing. Lena’s doctoral dissertation will deal with issues of visual and narrative censorship in the postwar Soviet film.