Organisers

Drs Natasha Rulyova and Jeremy Morris (CREES),

Seth Graham (SSEES), and Vlad Strukov (Leeds)

Dr Seth Graham is a Lecturer in the Russian Department, SSEES, University College London. He taught previously at Stanford University and the University of Washington, Seattle. He has published articles and chapters on Russian humour, Russian and Soviet film, Central Asian film, and contemporary Russian literature. In 2009 his book Resonant Dissonance: The Russo-Soviet Joke in Cultural Context was published by Northwestern University Press. He is currently at work on a book-length analysis of genre in post-Soviet Russian cinema.

Dr Jeremy Morris is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Birmingham, Centre for Russian and East European Studies. He has published on contemporary Russian film, the media, and popular culture. His research is now focussed on ethnographic approaches to contemporary Russian culture and society. His most recent publication was a contribution to a volume on celebrity formation in Russian popular culture (Routledge).

Dr Natalia Rulyova is a Lecturer in Russian at CREES, the University of Birmingham. She joined CREES in July 2006, having previously worked as Lecturer in Russian and Research Associate on the project Post-Soviet Television Culture led by Prof. Stephen Hutchings at the University of Surrey. Her current research focuses on contemporary Russian mass media and new media. She co-authored Television and Culture in Putin’s Russia: Remote Control (2009). With B. Beumers and S. Hutchings, she co-edited Globalisation, Freedom and the Media after Communism (2009) and The Post-Soviet Russian Media: Conflicting Signals (2009).

Dr Vlad Strukov has a dual appointment at the University of Leeds, School of Modern Languages and Cultures: he is a Lecturer in Russian Cultural Studies in the Department of German, Russian and Slavonic Studies, and a Lecturer in Digital Film in the Centre for World Cinemas. He has published on contemporary Russian film, animation, digital media, especially the internet, and popular culture; digital and web-induced arts. His latest publications are The Historical Dictionary of Contemporary Russia, and Celebrity and Glamour in Contemporary Russia: Shocking Chic. He is the founding editor of Digital Icons: Studies of Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media.