Maria Hristova

Maria (Masha) Hristova joined the Lewis & Clark community as Assistant Professor of Russian in 2017. A Bulgarian native, she received her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Yale University in 2015 with a concentration in post-Soviet Russian Culture and South Slavic languages and cultures. Currently, she teaches Beginning and Intermediate Russian, as well as a wide range of Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet culture seminars in English, as well as in Russian. Additionally, she is the faculty coordinator for the Critical Language Scholarship Program.

Academic Credentials

BA from Vassar College in 2008 in Russian and French Studies.

PhD from Yale University in 2015 in Slavic Languages and Literatures

Teaching

Fall 24’

RUSS 101

RUSS 201

RUSS 330

Research

Most broadly, Masha’s research focuses on 20th and 21st century (post) Soviet cultures. Her two main areas of interest are post-secularism in contemporary Russian-language women’s writing, and environmental themes in (post) Soviet literature, film, and art. Most recently, she participated in a 2019 summer seminar on “Religion and Secularism in the Novel,” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in a 2018 summer overseas program on “Religion in National and International Affairs in China and India,” organized by AsiaNETWORK. She has published articles in Balkanistica, KinoKultura, State, Religion, and Church, Journal of Film and Religion, and Canadian Slavonic Papers. Currently, she is writing on post-Soviet atomic bomb representations and co-editing the volume Energy/Waste: Approaches to the Environment in Contemporary Post-Soviet Cultures.