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Robyn Jensen

Visiting Assistant Professor of German and Russian
Office:
Mason Hall
103

With Pomona Since: 2019
Robyn Jensen
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  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Robyn Jensen is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature and culture. Her research and teaching take an intermedial approach to the study of Russian culture. Her work embraces a range of topics including photography theory, aesthetics and interart studies, visual culture, theater and performance studies, and theories of self-representation. She is currently writing a book about the skeptical fascination with photography in late and post-Soviet narratives of the self.

    Research Interests

    • Photography and Literature
    • Aesthetics and Interart Studies
    • Visual Culture
    • Russian Theater
    • Moscow Conceptualism
    • Nabokov

    Areas of Expertise

    Russian Literature and Culture

    • Photography Theory
    • Autobiography Studies
  • Work

    Work

    Articles

    “Authorizing the Image: Photography in Nabokov’s Speak, Memory,” Slavic and East European Journal 63.2 (Summer 2019)

    Film Reviews

    Core of the World (Serdtse mira), dir. Natalia Meshchaninova, Kino Kultura 65 (July 2019)

    Pomegranate Orchard (Nar bağı), dir. Ilgar Najaf, Kino Kultura 60 (April 2018)

    Dream-fish (Ryba-mechta), dir. Anton Bilzho, Kino Kultura 56 (April 2017)

    Anna Karenina, dir. David Blair, Tolstoy Studies Journal: Anna Karenina for the Twenty-First Century (2016)

    Kurai-Kurai: Tales on the Wind, dir. Marjoleine Boonstra, Kino Kultura 52 (April 2016)

    “Indictment or Endorsement: Leviathan in Putin’s Russia” (Roundtable), Ulbandus Online (Spring 2015)

    Public Writing

    “Written in the Face: On Sergei Lebedev’s Untraceable,” Los Angeles Review of Books, April 9, 2021

    “‘More Chekhov than Chekhov’: The Seagull on The Sims,” Los Angeles Review of Books. November 24, 2020.

    “On Photography, Protests, and Citizenship,” Los Angeles Review of Books Blog. July 14, 2020

    “Moscow-Beijing: A Journey Across Eurasia,” Harriman Magazine. Winter 2015.

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D., Columbia University

    M.Phil., Columbia University

    M.A., Columbia University                                           

    B.A., Barnard College

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Modern Russian Culture: From Pagan Rus to Pussy Riot
    • Building the Future: Revolution, Imagination, Utopia (Critical Inquiry Seminar)
    • Women in Soviet Film
    • Elementary Russian
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    Robert L. Belknap Dissertation Prize, Columbia University, 2019

    Summer Teaching Scholar, Columbia University, 2016

    Lead Teaching Fellow, Columbia University, 2015–16