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Regular Faculty of Smolny College

Courses at Smolny are taught by its nearly 150 faculty members, which include instructors from various departments of St. Petersburg State University, members of the city's leading research institutes, and distinguished cultural figures, such as poets, visual artists, musicians, film directors, and art critics. Additionally, instructors from U.S. and European universities regularly teach at Smolny College.

Each year one of Smolny's faculty members is awarded the college's "Award for Excellence in Teaching."

The following is a partial list of the faculty of Smolny College. Click here for a full list of faculty in Russian.

Akhapkin, Denis

Ph.D. in Linguistics, St. Petersburg State University. Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University; Research Associate, Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of Cognitive Studies Program, Smolny College. Author of commentary to volumes three and four of the Collected Works of poet Joseph Brodsky, published in 2004 by Pushkinsky Fond, St. Petersburg. Editor of online project “Archive of St. Petersburg Russian Studies” (2001–2003); literary editor at “Piter”, a publisher of psychological literature (1999-2001); editor of the culture section of the newspaper Saint-Petersburg Business Review (Sankt-Peterburgskoe delovoe obozrenie, 1999–2000). Specialist and author of various publications in the sphere of cognitive linguistics, linguostylistics, text linguistics, narratology, nonverbal semiotics, and philological hermeneutics.

Andrianov, Fyodor

Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of Chicago. Research Associate, Steklov Mathematics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences; Associate Professor, Head of Computer Science Program, Smolny College. Visiting professor, Department of Mathematics, North Dakota State University (2004–2005); Visiting professor, Department of Mathematics, The University of California, Los Angeles (2000–2004); instructor in mathematics, Department of Mathematics, The University of Chicago (1995–2000). Recipient of the Lawrence and Josephine Graves Teaching Prize (The University of Chicago, USA).

Astvatsaturov, Andrey

Ph.D. in Philology, St. Petersburg State University, Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Literatures at the Philology Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Head of Literature Program, Smolny College. Visiting professor at Bard College in 2001. Author of T. S. Eliot and His Poem “The Waste Land” (2000), as well as a number of articles on English and American literature. Member of the International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature (IASAIL) from 1993 - 1994.

Belkin, Anatoly

Artist and Editor-in-Chief, Veshch.doc. Student of N. S. Taranov, Department of Graphic Arts, I. E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Member of the St. Petersburg Union of Russian Artists. Since 1973 his art has been displayed in a number of Russian and international art exhibitions. His works are exhibited in various galleries and private collections in Russia and abroad, among them the Russian State Museum, The Museum of Russian Art in France, the East European Institute in Bochum, Germany, the Staedelik Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and others. Worked as leading editor of the magazines “SPb Sobaka.ru” (1999-2004) and “veshch.doc” (2005).

Boborykina, Tatyana

Ph.D., Associate Professor. Visiting professor at Szeged University (Hungary, 1983); visiting professor at Bard College (USA, 2000). Director of joint Russian-American Theater Project (2004). Jury member for the Russian literary award “National Bestseller” (2004). Literary consultant for Aleksandr Sokurov’s films “Quiet Pages” (“Tikhie stranitsy”, 1993), “Mournful Unconcern” (“Skorbnoe beschuvstvie”, 1987), and others.Literary consultant for a number of performances (based on the works of Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde). Author of the book-length study The Artistic World of Dickens’s Christmas Books (St. Petersburg, 1996); editor and author of introduction and English-language annotations to chapters of the monograph Voskhozhdenie (The Ascension) (about the work of Boris Eifman); author of introduction, editor and translator of Oscar Wilde. Salomea (2007), Mark Twain. Aphorisms (2005), George Bernard Shaw. Aphorisms (2003), Oscar Wilde. Paradoxes. (2002) and others, as well as many articles, translations and critical essays on ballet, cinematography, and theatre.

Czeczot, Ivan

Ph.D. in Art History, St. Petersburg State University. Head of the section of History and Theory of Fine Arts and Architecture, Russian Institute of Art History, Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of Art and Architecture Program, Smolny College. Instructor, Associate Professor of the Department of Art History of the European University, St. Petersburg. Founder and head of the Club of Art Historians of Leningrad (1986), closely tied to unofficial art of that time. Organizer of art gallery NAVICULA ARTIS (1992). Visiting professor at the Institute of Art History, University of Vienna, Austria (1997) and at the faculty of culture studies, Viadrina European University, Frankfurt a. d. Oder, Germany (1998). Russian delegate of the International Committee of the History of Art, member of the Max Beckmann Society of Munich, Germany, and the expert council of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art. Author of more than 40 scholarly articles.

Dragomoschenko, Arkady

Poet, writer, member of the Union of Russian Writers (since 1991), laureate of the independent Andrey Bely Prize in Literature (Leningrad, 1978). Served on the board of editors for the following samizdat magazines: “Chasy” (Leningrad, 1974-1983) and “Predlog” (Leningrad, 1983-1985). Member of the independent writers’ organization “Klub 81” (Leningrad, 1983).

Editor of the St. Petersburg section of the magazine “Kommentarii” (since 1990). Laureate of the prize awarded by the internet magazine “Post Modern Culture” (1995). Visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, La Jolla (1993, 1995) and at New York University (2000). Creator and host of the radio show “Other Rooms, Other Voices” (“Drugie komnaty, drugie golosa”) (1996-1998), as well as the television shows “Tikhoi sapoi” (1996-1998) and “Ulitsy moego detstva” (1999-2000). Co-authored the script of the American-Russian film “Letters Not About Love” (“Pis’ma ne o liubvi”, Green Apple Price - The Education Net, 1998; first price for documentary films, Austin Film Festival, 1998). Technical editor at the publishing house “Akademichesky Proekt” in St. Petersburg (since 1996). Author of nine books, a large number of literary and journalistic articles, as well as translations of the prose and poetry of European authors.

Dubrovsky, Dmitry

Ph.D. in Ethnology, European University at St. Petersburg (1999); Executive Director, Ethnic Studies Program, European University (since 1999); Chair, Department of Modern Ethnography, Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg (since 2002); Fellow on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars (2007 - 2008); Member, Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS).

Dmitry Dubrovsky is Associate Professor in the program of International Relations, Political Science, and Human Rights at Smolny College in St. Petersburg. An expert in human rights in contemporary Russia, he specializes in such topics as xenophobia, neo-Nazi, white supremacy, and other extremist groups. He is currently completing a Wilson Center Project with the title “Institution of Special Humanitarian Expert Examination in Russia: Struggle Against Discrimination or a Tool of Discrimination?”.

Since 1999, Dmitry Dubrovsky has taught in the educational program for regional ombudsmen of the Russian Federation, which is organized by the St. Petersburg Humanitarian and Political Center “Strategia.” From 2002 - 2003 he served as chief advisor to the project for the “Development of Interethnic Relations and Prophylactic Against Extremism in Russian Society” of the European Commission.

Dvinyatin, Fyodor

Ph.D. in Philology, St. Petersburg State University. Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University; Head of Russian Culture and Civilization Program, Smolny College. Associate Professor, Russian Department and Canadian College at St. Petersburg State. Specializes in Russian literature of the 11th – 14th as well as 19th – 20th centuries (textual poetics, intertextuality, linguistic models), paleoslavistics, general poetics, the history and methodology of philology and the humanities in general. Author of a number of scholarly publications.

Fokin, Sergey

Ph.D. in Philology, St. Petersburg State University. Professor and Chair of the Department of Romance Languages, St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finances; Professor and Head of French Culture and Civilization Program, Smolny College. Specializes in the literature, philosophy and culture of twentieth-century France. Translator of the works of J. Bataille, M. Blanchot, Deleuze, Sartre and others. Author of Philosopher-outside-himself: Georges Bataille (St. Petersburg, 2002) and The “Russian Idea” in Twentieth-Century French Literature (St. Petersburg, 2003).

Khapaeva, Dina

Ph.D. in History, St. Petersburg State University. Associate Professor, History Program, Deputy Director For Research and Director of Smolny Collegium, Smolny College. Visiting research fellow at the University of Canterbury (1991-1992), Institute for Human Sciences, Paris (1993–1995). Translated France – Memory by Pierre Nora (1999). Author of The Time of Cosmopolitanism: Essays in Intellectual History  (St. Petersburg, 2002), Dukes of the Republics in the Age of Upheaval: The Humanities and the Revolution of (?oscow, 2005) as well as a number of articles on contemporary European and Russian Post-Soviet intellectual history and the epistemology of the social sciences.

Khodorkovskaya, Elena

Ph.D. in Music, Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema (now the St. Petersburg Theater Arts Academy). Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University; Senior Researcher, Russian Institute of the History of Art, Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of Music Program, Smolny College. Scholarly interests: problems of music theory (the structure and evolution of the European tonal-harmonic system), philosophy of music (the ontology of musical language, the mechanism of musical reception), sociology and history of musical theater. Author of over 100 articles published in Russian and international anthologies and encyclopedias. Fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD, 1994) and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS, 2002). Visiting professor at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Arts, and at Bard College in Annandale, NY. Presently completing her doctoral dissertation on the topic of phenomenology and sociology of seventeenth-century operatic theater.

Komissarov, Boris

Ph.D. in History, St. Petersburg State University. Professor, St. Petersburg State University; Head of theHistory of Civilizations Program, Smolny College. Visiting research associate at the National Council of Science and Technology of the Brazilian government and visiting professor at the Federal Fluminense University of Brazil in 1990-1992. Awarded the Order of Rio Branco in the rank of commander by the Brazilian president. Specializes in the history of Brazil, the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, and Russian foreign policy. Author of the monographs Grigorii Ivanovich Langsdorf. 1774-1852 (1975), The First Russian Expedition to Brazil (1977), Russian Sources on Brazil History of the First Third of the Nineteenth Century (1977), Petersburg – Rio de Janeiro. The Formation of Relations (1987), Problems of the History of Colonial America (1991), Three Centuries of Colonial America (1992), F. F. Borel’: First Russian Ambassador to Brazil (2000).

Koposov, Nikolay

Ph.D. in Philosophy and History, St. Petersburg State University. Professor, History Program and Dean of the College, Smolny College. Visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (1993-1995). Fellow, Collegium Budapest (1997-1998). Specializes in French history, intellectual history and historiography. Author of the monographs High Bureaucracy in France of the Eighteenth Century (1990), How Historian Think (2001), Enough Killing Cats! Critiquing the Social Sciences (2004), as well as a number of articles in the journal Annals: Economics. Society. Civilization and other publications.

Kuperin, Yurii

Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics, St. Petersburg State University. Professor, leading research associate, St. Petersburg State University; Head of Program in Complex Systems in Nature and Society, Smolny College. Held positions at the University of Budapest (Hungary), The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (Italy), Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany), the University of Stockholm (Sweden), and the International Institute of Physics and Chemistry (Belgium). Taught at the University of Houston, Texas, and the University of Alaska.

St. Petersburg Coordinator of the European-Russian projects “Algorithms and Computing in Complex Systems” (1993-1996), ESPRIT (1994-1997), as well as the Few-Body Physics Network (1993-1995). Member of the International Association of Mathematical Physics (since 1994), the American Mathematical Society (since 1996), the Russian Physical Society (since 1996), and honorary member of the Ecological Fond of the Baltic Nations (Baltik-ECO). Member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). Director of the program “Information Technology, Econophysics, and the Administration of Complex Systems”, Faculty of Physics, St. Petersburg State University, and company DataArt (since 2004).

Research interests include mathematical and theoretical physics, theoretical and applied aspects of complex systems, econophysics, chaos theory in finances and economics, control of chaos dynamics, neurological technologies in economics, business and finances, theoretical nanoelectronics, and spintronics. Author of over 120 publications.

Magun, Artemy

Ph.D. in Philosophy, The University of Strasbourg, France (Mention très honorable avec les felicitations unanimes du jury). Ph.D. in Political Science, The University of Michigan, USA. D.E.A. (Diploma of Advanced Studies) in Philosophy, The University of Human Sciences in Strasbourg, France. Instructor in the department of political science and sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg (since 2002). Co-editor of the St. Petersburg newspaper Chto delat’ (since 2003); visiting editor of the journal New Literary Review (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie). Specialist and author of various publications in the sphere of political philosophy, the theory and history of revolutions, contemporary Russian politics, art and politics.

Markov, Boris

Ph.D. in Philosophy. Professor, Chair of the Department of Philosophical Anthropology at the Philosophy Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Member of the Russian Academy of the Humanities, member of the dissertation review board. Visiting Professor at the University of Greifswald, Germany (1995, 1996). Specialist in the sphere of philosophical and cultural anthropology, methodology and epistemology. Since the early 1990s another research interest has been the history of the correlation between spirituality and corporality on the basis of phenomenology, hermeneutics and psychoanalysis. Author of ten book-length studies and over 300 articles.

Monakhov, Valery

Ph.D in History. Director of Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Served as provost of international relations at Herzen State Pedagogical University from 1988 to 1994. Specializes in the history of public opinion and foreign policy of the USA. Author of numerous articles and anthologies: The Cultural Space of Travels (2003); Conflict and Consensus in American Society: Theory and Practice (2003); Russian-American Links: 300 Years of Cooperation (2003); Ninth Lafontaine Readings: The Topos of St. Petersburg and the Problem of Cultural Contacts in Modern Times (2003), and others.

Morozov, Viacheslav

Ph.D. in History, St. Petersburg State University. Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University; Head of International Relations, Political Science, and Human Rights Program, Smolny College. Magister in European Integration (First Class Honors, University of Limerick, Ireland, 1996). Director of the European Documentation Center of St. Petersburg. Author of the book-length study Swedish Social-Democratic Ideology and European Integration (1998), the textbook Introduction to European Studies (2002), and other publications.

Postoutenko, Kirill

Ph.D. in Philology, Moscow University. Member of both the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) since 1998. Taught at the University of Southern California, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences (1998–2005).Currently teaches at Smolny College through the Academic Fellowship Program (Returning Scholar Fellowship). Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Directs the work of the international seminar Terrioriality.

Raskov, Danila

Ph.D. in Economics. Specialist in the sphere of economic history, New Institutional Economic Theory (participant in conferences on New Institutional Economics in Saint Louis, Paris, Washington, Tuebingen, Boston, and Barcelona), and the interrelations of economics and religion. Organized educational tours to Italy for students and instructors at Smolny Institute from 2002 to 2005. Currently completing a book on entrepreneurship among the Old Believers.

Savchenkova, Nina

Ph.D. in Philosophy, Associate Professor of the Department of Ontology and Epistemology of the Philosophy Faculty, St. Petersburg State University since 2001. Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Criticism at the Eastern European Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Present research interests lie in the sphere of sensuality, the problematization of corporality and the contemporary language of desire, psychoanalysis, and gender studies. Authored a chapter for the anthology Silentium (1996); Figures of Tanatos (1997). Author of a cycle of introductions to the works of Sigmund Freud (Freud, S., Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1997 and Freud, S., Psychoanalysis and Childhood Neuroses, 1997).

Semyonov, Alexander

Ph.D. in History (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary).

Previously taught at Columbia University (New York, 1999-2000) and at the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary, 2002-2003). Editor of the international English-language journal Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in Post-Soviet Space. From 2004-2005 co-directed “Building Democracy in Multi-Ethnic Societies, Project of the US Department’s Freedom Support Educational Partnership Program”, a reform project of educational systems in the sphere of social sciences and the humanities (sponsored by Rutgers University, USA, and the State University of Kazan, Russia). Member of American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS). Author of articles on problems in the history of Russia, the study of empire and nationalism in the post-Soviet space. Editor of the journal New Imperial History of Post-Soviet Space (Novaya imperskaya istoriya postsovetskogo prostranstva), Kazan, 2004. Specialist on the history of Russia, Eastern and Central Europe and nationalism.

Shakhnovich, Marianna

Ph.D. in Philosophy, St. Petersburg State University. Professor and Head of Department of Philosophy or Religion and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg State University; Head of Religious Studies Program, Smolny College. Author of over 150 scholarly publications, including the book-length studies The Paradoxes of Epicurus’ Theology (2000), The Garden of Epicurus: The Philosophy of Religion of Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition in the History of European Culture (2002), as well as textbooks, such as The World Religions (2004), Religion Studies (2006). Teaches the following courses: “World Religions and Comparative Religion Studies”, “The Phenomenology and History of Religions”, “Religion Studies: Histories and Traditions”, “Religious-Esoteric Teachings”, “Religions and Society”, “Cognitive Religion Studies” and others, including courses on the philosophy of antiquity and the philosophy of religion. Taught in the Department of Classical and Religious Studies at the University of Rochester (New York, USA) and lectured at a number of universities in the USA and Europe. Fulbright Fellow, Kone Foundation Fellow (Helsinki University, Finland).

Shevelenko, Irina

Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Stanford University. Associate Professor, Literature Program; Associate Dean of International Students, Smolny College. Has taught at a number of North American and European universities: Teaching Assistant, Stanford University (1993-1995, 1997); Visiting Professor, University of Pisa (2000); Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2000-2001); Instructor, Middlebury College Russian Summer School, Graduate Program (2001). Specializes in the works of Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian literature and emigration. Author of book-length studies The Literary Journey of Tsvetaeva: Ideology – Poetics – Identity of the Author in the Context of the Epoch (Moscow, 2002) and Materials on the Russian Emigration of the 1920-1920s in the Collection of Baroness M. Vrangel (Archives of Hoover Institution at Stanford) (Stanford, Stanford, Slavic Specialties, 1995).

Yershov, Gleb

Associate Professor, Ph.D., Art History, St. Petersburg State University, Department of Culture and Art. Curator of NAVICULA ARTIS (1994). Organizer and curator of the International Kharms Festival (1995-1998, 2005). Organized and curated more than 70 arts exhibitions at museums and galleries in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the greater Leningrad Region, Poland, and Germany. Author of over one hundred articles on questions in Russian and foreign art history.