Russophone Literatures and Cultures

I work on Russophone literature and culture from the nineteenth century onwards, with a particular interest in narrative theory and social history.

Female Crime Writers: I am currently writing a book entitled Russia's First Female Crime Writers, 1860-1917. Work is funded by a British Academy / Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship for the academic year 2025-26. It will be the first study in any language of the handful of women who wrote crime fiction in the late imperial era. 

Related work on this topic includes an article on Aleksandra Sokolova (1833-1916) which was published by Slavonic and East European Review in 2021 (here).

Previous work on Russophone crime fiction was published as The Poetics of Early Russian Crime Fiction, 1860-1917: Deciphering Tales of Detection by Legenda in 2018. This book is still the only book-length study of the formative years of a genre that now enjoys almost unrivalled popularity in post-Soviet Russia. You can read more about it in this blog interview with the North American Dostoevsky Society: https://bloggerskaramazov.com.

More recently, I have co-authored an article with Grace Docherty on 'Bodies of Evidence: The Depiction of Violence Against Female Characters in Late Imperial Russian Crime Fiction', published by Modern Languages Open in 2023. 

Lost Detectives: I lead a public engagement and impact project, kindly funded by the University of St Andrews, entitled 'Lost Detectives: Adapting Old Texts for New Media', and work with the author-illustrator, Carol Adlam. Carol's graphic novel adaptation of an 1876 work by Semyon Panov was published as The Russian Detective in 2024. Rachel Cooke in the Guardian calls it 'an exquisitely illustrated celebration of early crime fiction' (see here). Carol and I have recently co-authored an article on our collaborative experience on this project here: 'Intermedial Adaptations of Nineteenth-Century Russian Crime Fiction' published by Adaptation.

I would welcome postgraduate inquiries from students interested in pursuing projects in any area of the long nineteenth-century in Russophone literature and culture, as well as in crime fiction, the fantastic and comparative literature.

Teaching

I teach at all levels in both the department and the School of Modern Languages. In the Russian Department, I frequently coordinate and teach on our Beginners' Language modules (RU1001 and RU1002). My research-related teaching focusses on three Honours modules: RU3022 The Nineteenth-Century Russophone Novel; RU4142 The Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century Russophone Literature; and RU4144 Russian Crime Fiction. I also contribute to various Comparative Literature modules, including CO2002 Journeys (on which I teach Dostoevskii's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions). 

My research interests remain broadly comparative with a focus on the relationship between Russian and French literatures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My current research work focusses on early Russian crime fiction, its socio-historical context, but most particularly its exploitation of poetic devices to create effect. I am also in the early stages of a project devoted to the work of the little-known nineteenth-century author, Aleksandra Sokolova (aka Blue Domino). 

I am collaborating on a Knowledge Exchange and Impact project, 'Lost Detectives: Adapting Old Texts for New Media', with the author-illustrator, Carol Adlam, and we are currently developing a podcast series as well as a range of adaptations of 'lost' nineteenth-century works of Russian crime fiction.

I retain a strong interest in critical theory, particularly in narrative poetics.

I am currently researching and writing my third monograph, provisionally entitled Russia's First Female Crime Writers, 1860-1917. This book will examine the work of the first five women to write crime fiction in the late Russian imperial era: Kapitolina Nazar’eva (1847-1900), Aleksandra Sokolova (1833-1914) – the two most prolific – as well as Liudmila Simonova (1838-1906), Sof’ia Smirnova (1852-1921) and Evgeniia Fortunato (1875-1968). The book will feature 6 chapters that each aim to examine how female-authored crime fiction: (1) constitutes a valuable resource for understanding social history; (2) demonstrates how narrative techniques can be harnessed to express nuanced sociohistorical criticism; (3) show how the authors' biographies offer an opportunity to better comprehend the experience of female writers at the margins of the literary world; (4) evidences a different approach to the expression of (proto-) feminist views.

I am continuing to develop my ongoing Impact and Innovation project, 'Lost Detectives' with the artist-author Carol Adlam.

I have been contracted to write a chapter on 'Russian Popular Fiction' for the Oxford Handbook for Popular Fictions for submission in May 2026.

BA (Hons), Russian and French, University of Bristol, 1995.

PhD, Russian and French, University of Bristol, 2002.