Jesse Gardiner

I specialise in Russian theatre of the twentieth century and have a particular interest in the interrelationship of performance studies, cultural history and critical theory.

My research engages with questions of public performance and performativity, the translation and reception of drama in different cultures, and the interface between politics and aesthetics. I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students on all aspects of 20^th and 21^st-century Russian theatre and dramatic literature.

My book Soviet Theatre during the Thaw: Aesthetics, Politics and Performance (Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury, 2022) explored the revival of avant-garde theatre productions and plays during the post-Stalin thaw via Jacques Ranciere's reading of the politics of aesthetics. I have published articles on Bertolt Brecht’s reception in Russia, the theory of ‘conflictlessness’ in post-war Soviet drama and a book chapter on the director Oleg Efremov for the edited volume Russian Theatre in Practice.

I joined St Andrews in 2017 having previously taught at the University of Oxford, Durham University and the University of Exeter. I completed my PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2014.

In the Department of Russian at St Andrews, I teach Russian literature and culture from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, including honours modules on Theatre and Performance in Russophone Cultures (RU3043), Utopia/Dystopia in Russian Literature and Culture (RU4554) and The Russian Play (RU3047), in which students stage and perform a play in Russian. I teach Russian grammar and translation at all levels and convene the second-year Russian language stream for post-beginners. I also enjoy teaching on the School's Comparative Literature programme and for the MLitt in Global Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

I am on the committee of the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies (BASEES) and co-ordinate the Literature and Culture stream for the BASEES annual conference. I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.