Research Assistant Professor
Email: kushkova@live.unc.edu
Phone:
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Theory of Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Field Ethnography, Oral History, Anthropology of Jews, Soviet and post-Soviet Jews, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Economic Anthropology, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Slavic Studies, Identity and Agency, Memory and Nostalgia, Food and Consumption.
RESEARCH POSITIONS
Research assistant professor, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (2018-2019)
Visiting scholar, Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, Religions and Public Life Initiative (2017-2018)
Associate research fellow, European University at St. Petersburg, Department of Anthropology (1999-2010)
Associate research fellow, European University at St. Petersburg, Center “Petersburg Judaica,” (2005-2010)
Assistant, Program “Formation of tolerance and prevention of extremism in the Russian society” (European University at St .Petersburg, Ethnic Studies Center) (2001-2005)
Member of the Research group for Anthropology of Law, assistant for three international school dedicated to the protection of rights of the numerically small indigenous peoples of the North (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) and Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North) (2004)
Participant of the “Program of small projects in the sphere of democratic institutes DISPS-2 (in cooperation with Harold & Selma Light Center for Human Rights Advocacy” (Program “The Climate of Trust – Leningrad Region”) (2003)
AWARDS, GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
Visiting Scholar, The Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University, for the 2018-19 academic year. (declined)
Distinguished Book Award of the Ural Federal University for the book “Peasant Quarrel: A Study of Rural Everyday Life (based on materials from the European part of Russia, second half of the XIX – beginning of the XX c.).” St. Petersburg: European University of St. Petersburg, 2016. 318 p. Studia Ethnologica series, Vol. 13. (2016)
Rhonda A. and Robert Hillel Silver Graduate Fellowship (2013-2014) ($16,000)
Summer research grant of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies (2013) ($5,000)
Royster Society of Fellows (William N. Reynolds Fellowship), University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) (2010- 2015) ($22,000 per year during five years of PhD studies)
Kennan Institute Short-Term Grant for archival research in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2009) ($ 3,000)
Research grant within the group project “Russian National Identity from 1961: Traditions and Deterritorialisation,” funded with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom under grant AH/E509967/1 (2007- 2010) (£ 4,416 per annum)
INTAS Young Scientist Fellowship grant, title of the individual research: “Phenomenon of “Comrades’ Courts”: Between Customary and Official Justice (based on contemporary field materials from North-Western Russia” (2005- 2006) (€ 9100 per year)
Individual research grant of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS); title of the project: “Culture of Customary Justice in Post-Emancipation Russian Village: Shaming Punishments” (2003-2004) ($4,000)
Course Development Competition grant of the Open Society Institute. Title of the course: “Everyday Discord in Peasant Community: Customary Law Perspective” (2002-2003).
Research Support Scheme grant of the Open Society No.: 1136/2000 (individual project). Title of the project: “Conflicts in the Contemporary Russian Village: Methods and Perspectives” (2000-2002) ($4,000)
PUBLICATIONS
Book:
Peasant Quarrel: A Study of Rural Everyday Life (based on materials from the European part of Russia, second half of the XIX – beginning of the XX c.). St. Petersburg: European University of St. Petersburg, 2016. 318 p. Studia Ethnologica series, Vol. 13. (in Russian) (reviewed by Chris Chulos, Slavic Review, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter 2017), pp. 1142-1143).
Major articles:
“Hidden Realms of Private Entrepreneurship: Soviet Jews and Post-World War II Artels in the USSR” (in print, for the collection of essays “Hidden Capitalism,” University of Pennsylvania Press).
“What Does Food Tell Us About Soviet Jews?” (submitted for In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies) (I’m also serving as an invited editor and reviewer for the next issue).
“Soviet Jewish Food: On the Culinary Dimension of Ethnic Identity.” Pp. 248-268 In Experto crede Alberto: A collection of articles dedicated to the 70th birthday of A. K. Baiburin. St. Petersburg: European University at St. Petersburg, 2017. Studia Ethnologica, Issue 14. 464 p.
“An Essay on Jewish Ethnic Economy: The Case of Belz (Moldova).” East European Jewish Affairs 2013, 43(1):77-100.
Review of: Alison K. Smith. Recipes for Russia: Food and Nationhood under the Tsars. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008. Russian Journal of Communication Volume 4, 2011 – Issue 3-4, Pp. 373-375.
“Surviving in the Time of Deficit and the Narrative Construction of a ‘Soviet Identity’”. Pp. 278- 296 in: Soviet and Post-Soviet Identities. ed. by Mark Bassin and Catriona Kelly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
“At the Center of the Table. The Rise and Fall of the Olivier Salad”. Russian Studies in History Vol. 50, no. 1, Summer 2011, pp. 44–96.
“The concept of yikhes and its transformation during the Soviet period (based on field materials collected in the town of Tulchin, Ukraine).” East European Jewish Affairs 2010, 40: 3, 237-260.
“Female social control in the late Soviet village: Comrades’ courts as a nexus of official and customary justice.” Pp. 283-304 In: Everyday Life in Russian History: Quotidian Studies in Honor of Daniel Kaiser. Gary Marker, Joan Neuberger, Marshall Poe, and Susan Rupp, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2010.
“Rural nicknaming: Nature, use, and social functions (based on field materials from Belozersk district, Vologda region).” Anthropological Forum 2009. № 11. Pp. 1-32 (in Russian).
“Attitude to the Soviet Past through Memories about Food Shortages.” New Literary Review № 64 (2009 (2)) (URL: http://www.intelros.ru/readroom/nz/nz_64/3861-sovetskoe- proshloe- skvoz- vospominanija.html) (in Russian).
“I request the Court to Make Answerable in a Comradely Way”: Rural Dwellers Apply to Comrades’ Court (based on 1964-1982 materials and contemporary field interviews)” Pp. 406-421 In: Studia Ethnologica. Works of the Department of Ethnology, European University at St. Petersburg. EUSP publishers, Issue 4. 2007 (in Russian).]
“Thus did I lash – with curses! In the name of the Father, and the Son…” (The small religious community: a case of conflict resolution). Pp.151-171 In: Dreams of the Theotokos. Studies in Religious Anthropology. Eds. Zh.V. Kormina, A.A. Panchenko, S.A. Shtyrkov. St. Petersburg: European University at St. Petersburg publishers, 2006. (in Russian)
“The Everyday Life of Playing Cards, Ruralism, and the Case of Russian Peasantry.” Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 6.1 (Winter 2006): The Play’s the Thing: Games, Gamers and Gaming Cultures. Wolf-Meyer, M. and D. Heckman, eds. (URL: http://reconstruction.eserver.org/Issues/061/kushkova.shtml)
Kushkova, Anna. 2005. “In the Center of the Table: Zenith and Decline of Salad “Olivje”” In: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (New Literary Review), № 76 (2005). P. 278-314. (URL: http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2005/76/ku23.html)
“Village Gossiping: Between Fear and Pleasure (some notes on economy of emotions in social interaction of one local tradition).” Etnolog. Glasnik Slovenskega Enografskega Muzeja (Bulletin of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum). 14/2004. Ljubljana, 2004. Pp. 139-175. (in English and Slovenian).
FIELD RESEARCH
19 years of field research experience, the most significant expeditions are:
Field school on Jewish ethnography and epigraphy in Briansk and Starodub (SEFER Center for University Teaching of Jewish Cevilization, supported by Genesis Philanthropy Group, Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and other sponsors) (August 6-12, 2018)
Jewish field school – expedition in Rybnitsa (Transnistria) (SEFER Cener for University Teaching of Jewish Cevilization, supported by the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress) (June 24-July 1, 2018)
Summer school “Difficult Heritage and Memory in the Making.” Organized by Bremen University, sponsored by Volkswagen Stiftung and Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Bremen-Berlin, August 2017)
Field School for Jewish Ethnography and Epigraphics in Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Tiraspol’, Bendery, Rybnitsa, Rashkov). Organized by the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization SEFER and the Center of Slavic and Jewish Studies, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with support of Genesis Philanthropy Group, UJA Federation of NY, and others. (July 2017)
Field expedition to Israel (Tel-Aviv, Hod ha-Sharon, Rishon le-Zion, Haifa, Carmel). Sponsored by the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization SEFER. (Oct. 2015)
Dissertation field research in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Moscow suburbs (Summer 2013 – Summer 2014)
Field School in Bălți, Soroca and Chişinău (Moldova), organized by Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization “SEFER,” Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies (Russian State University for the Humanities), supported by Avi Chai Foundation (Summer 2011)
Field School for Ethnography and Folklore of the Jews of the Eastern Europe (Mogilev-Podol’sky and Bershad’, Vinnitsa region (Ukraine)) (Summer 2008)
Field School for Ethnography and Folklore of the Jews of the Eastern Europe (Mogilev-Podol’sky, Vinnitsa region (Ukraine) (Summer 2007); Tulchin, Vinnitsa region (Ukraine) (Summers of 2005 and 2006); Balta, Odessa region, and Tulchin, Vinnitsa region (Ukraine) (Summer 2006)
Expeditions Vologda region (Russia) (Summers of 2001, 2004, 2006)
Expeditions to Novgorod and Pskov regions (Russia) (Summers of 1999 and 2000)
RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND INVITED TALKS
“Memory of the Holocaust and Jewish Identity in Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian Shtetls.” Duke University, The Kenan Institute for Ethics. (April 3, 2018).
Participant of the round table “Yiddish Studies Beyond Borders” (Association of Jewish Studies 49the Annual Conference, December 18, 2017) (Washington, DC)
“Some Jews went into the revolution, others went into trade”: on Jews in the Soviet trade network (based on the case study of post-war suburban Moscow Jewish settlements). Presentation at the panel “New Perspectives on Jewish Migration: Intra-State and Intra-Regional Migration in the Postwar Soviet Jewish Experience” (Association of Jewish Studies 49the Annual Conference (December 17, 2017) (Washington, DC)
“Material traces of religious Jewish life in the former “shtetls” of the Jewish Pale of Settlement (Ukraine)” (Nov. 7, 2017, presentation for the class “The Changing Lives of Jewish Objects” (FOLK 481, UNC)).
“Jewry pays a higher price for the revolution, and gets less from it than the others”: Notes on the impact of the Russian revolution upon Jewish economic life. (Nov. 2, 2017, Symposium “1917: The Russian Revolutionary Moment,” University of Delaware).
“Russian Jews in Business: Navigating the Planned Economy in Post-WWII Soviet Union.” (Nov. 1, 2017, University of Delaware, History Department, class “Jews, Business, and Commerce”).
“‘Refined Jews’: Yikhes and Social Status in the (Post)-Soviet Shtetl.” (Oct. 31, 2017, University of Delaware, History Department).
“Jewish Economic Life in the Postwar Moscow Suburbs: Adaptation to the Soviet “Planned Economy” (Based on Field Research in the Settlements of Malakhovka and Saltykovka).” Presented at the 48th Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Studies, Dec. 18-20, San Diego, CA
“Jewish economic practices in post-war Soviet Union: The case of Moscow Jewish suburbs Malakhovka and Saltykovka.” Presented at the 48th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (Washington, DC, Nov, 17-20, 2016).
“Jewish economic practices in the context of the Soviet planned economy: The case of Jewish suburban settlements Malakhovka and Saltykovka” (International conference “History of Soviet Jewry (1918-1991): New Sources, New Approaches.” Moscow; Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, The Shvidler Project for the History of the Jews of the Soviet Union (NYU), National Research University Higher School of Economics” (Moscow; June, 2016)
“Ethnic Economic Activity in the Socialist ‘Economy of Shortages’: The Case of Jews in the Soviet Moldova.” ASEEES 44th Annual Convention (New Orleans, Nov. 2012)
“Surviving the Time of Deficit: A Narrative Construction of Soviet Identity” (Colloquium on East European History “Demise, Loss or Freedom? Stories of the End of the Soviet Union) (Hamburg Institute for Social Research (Germany); July 2011)
“Female social control in the late Soviet village: Comrades’ courts as a nexus of official and customary justice.” (Experiences of Everyday Life in Russian History: A Conference in Honor of D. Kaiser. Grinnell College, IA; Oct. 2010).
“Surviving in the Time of Deficit and the Narrative Construction of a ‘Soviet Identity’” (The 41st National Convention of the AAASS (Boston); Nov. 2009).
“Refined Jews: Yikhes and Social Status in the (Post)-Soviet Shtetl” (Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Israel; Aug. 2009)
PUBLIC LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS
“Jewish clandestine business in the USSR: based on ethnographic materials of Moscow suburban settlements Malakhovka and Saltykovka” (Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg; Feb. 2016)
“Jewish Anthropology and Russian and Ethnic Economic Activity in the Socialist ‘Economy of Shortages’” (UNC Global South Working Group; Oct. 2014)
“Yichus and Social Stratification of Soviet and Post-Soviet Shtetl” (Trinity College (CT) and Jewish Theological Seminary (NY) (Nov. 2009)
““Refined Jews”: Yikhes and Social Status in the (Post)-Soviet Shtetl” (based on field materials collected in the Jewish communities of Ukraine (towns of Tulchin, Balta, and Mogilev) (University of Pennsylvania and Bard College), and “Contemporary Anthropological Field Research: Popular Religion in Russia” (Villanova University) (Nov.-Dec. 2008)
Series of public lectures “Shtetl in the XXI Century: Memory, Identity, Tradition” (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Northern Iowa, Grinnell College (IA), Jewish Federation of Des Moines (IA), New York University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (Oct.-Nov. 2007)
Series of public lectures “Contemporary Anthropological Field Research: Popular Religion in Russia” (University of Northern Iowa, Grinnell College and Iowa State University) (Oct.-Nov. 2004)
PANELS ORGANIZED
Panel “Late-Soviet and Post-Soviet Identities: Life in Oral History and Cultural Memory” (The 41st National Convention of the AAASS (Boston), Nov. 2009)
ETHNOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION PARTICIPATION
Exhibition “Talks on Lenin Street (Jewish Tulchin in field recordings of 2005-2006).” Organized by the interdepartmental center “Petersburg Judaica,” European University at St. Petersburg, project “Museum of Jewish oral history.” Presentation topic: ““Decent people”: Yikhes.” (Nov. 2006)
Exhibition “Family Memorabilia and Jewish Memory” (supported by Charities Aid Foundation)ю Organized by the interdepartmental center “Petersburg Judaica,” European University at St. Petersburg and The State Museum of the History of Religion (St. Petersburg) (2010)
MAJOR TRANSLATIONS AND INTERPRETATION
- Liarskaya. Women and the Tundra: Is There a Gender Shift on Yamal? The Anthropology of East Europe Review Vol. 28, No 2 (2010). Special Issue: “Gender Shift in the North of Russia.” Pp. 51-84 (URL: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/aeer/article/view/931)
- Ivanov. From Charity to Productive Labour: The World ORT Union and Jewish agricultural colonization in the Soviet Union, 1923–38. East European Jewish Affairs, 37:1,1-28, 2007.
- Rosenberg. Soviet Archives and the “Archival Turn.” Pp. 65-77 In: Archivist and Historian: Cooperation in the Context of Contemporary Scholarship and Culture. Ed. G. Lisitsyna et al. St.-Petersburg, Evropeisky Dom, 2007.
- X. Blouin, Jr. Archives without History: Confronting the Challenge of the Digital in Archival Conceptions and Practice. P. 138-154 in: “Archivist and Historian: Cooperation in the Context of Contemporary Scholarship and Culture (materials of the international conference, October 16-18, 2006, European University at St. Petersburg)” / Comp.: G. G. Lisitsyna, eds. S. V. Mironenko et al. St.-Petersburg, “Evropeisky Dom” publishers, 2007.
L-P. Thiele. Nietzsche, Irony and Democratic Politics. Pp. 154-184 in: Nietzsche and contemporary Western Thought / ed. V. Kaploun. St. Petersburg-Moscow: European University at St. Petersburg, Lentniy Sad publishers, 2003.
Tracy B. Strong. Philosophy and the Politics of Cultural Revolution. P. 18-58 in: Nietzsche and Contemporary Western Thought / ed. V. Kaploun. St. Petersburg-Moscow: European University at St. Petersburg, Lentniy Sad publishers, 2003.
- Burch and J. Keeping. The Canadian Experience on Negotiating Benefits Agreements Between Companies and Indigenous Communities. Pp. 267-283 In: Reindeer is Always Right: Research in Anthropology of Law , Ed. by N. Novikova. Moscow: Strategiya publishers, 2003.
Interpreter of archival seminars organized by the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and the European University at St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg, Nov. 1999, March 2001, Nov. 2001, March 2005, Oct. 2006, April 2008).
SERVICE
Charities Aid Foundation (Great Britain, Russian Programs), consultant (March – Dec. 2015)
Royster Society of Fellows: Covenant Scholars Mentoring Program, UNC Chapel Hill (2012-2013)
Petersburg Judaica Center, European University at St. Petersburg: field archive manager (2005-2008)
Editorial assistant for Disputatio: An International Transdisciplinary Journal of the Late Middle Ages. Volume 2: Construction of Time in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Carol Poster and Richard Utz. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1997. (1996)
MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Anthropological Association (Professional membership, section: Society for the Anthropology of Europe)
Association for Jewish Studies (AJS)
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
LANGUAGES AND SKILLS
Languages: Russian (native), English (native proficiency), German (excellent), French and Yiddish (oral), Church Slavonic and Biblical Greek (reading liturgical texts)
Other skills: ethnographic video, ethnographic exhibition organization, simultaneous translation (English-Russian)
For more information, see Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at:
https://jewishstudies.unc.edu/files/2017/05/JSNewsletterWinter2011.pdf (p. 1)
https://jewishstudies.unc.edu/files/2017/05/JSNewsletterFall2013.pdf (p. 4)