Russian Studies Program

Home / People / David Powelstock

David Powelstock

David Powellstock Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature

Research Interests

Modern Russian literature
Modern Czech literature
Russian & Czech languages
Comparative literature
Literary theory
Translation studies

Degrees

University of California, Berkeley, PhD
University of California, Berkeley, MA
Princeton University, BA

Podcast

Get to know Professor David Powelstock by listening to our podcast.

Awards/Fellowships

Brandeis Senior Faculty Research Leave (2016)
Research Associate, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University (renewed) (2012-2018)
Norman Faculty Scholarship Award (2011)
Davis Foundation Writing Grant Faculty Fellow (2009)
Research Associate, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University (2006)
Course Development Grant, Consilience Program, Brandeis University (2005)
Faculty Consilience Seminar, Brandeis University (2004 - 2005)
Research Associate, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University (through 2006) (2003)
Residential Research Fellow, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University (1998 - 1999)
Junior Faculty Summer Fellowship, University of Chicago (1997)
ACLS Grant for Travel to International Meetings Abroad (1996)
Mellon Fellowship, administered by The Center for Slavic and East European Studies, University of California, Berkeley (1993)
University of California-Herzen University Junior Faculty Exchange Grant (5 months dissertation research at Herzen State Pedagogical University, St. Petersburg) (1992)
ACTR Summer Exchange of Teachers of Russian Grant (3 months teacher training at Herzen Pedagogical Institute, Leningrad) (1990)
IREX Language Training Grant (6 months study at Charles University, Prague) (1989)
UC Berkeley Regents Intern-Fellowship (1987)

Select Publications

Powelstock, David. Becoming Mikhail Lermontov: The Ironies of Romantic Individualism in Nicholas I's Russia. Northwestern University Press, 2005

Select Courses Taught

COMH 201a: Comparative Humanities Proseminar
COML 100a: Comparing Literatures: Theory and Practice
COML 109b: The Art of Living: Imagination and the Just Life
COML 160a: East European Literature & Film: Art & Life in the Throes of History
COML 171a: Literary Translation in Theory and in Practice
RECS 100a: Russian Soul: Masterworks of Modern Russian Culture
RECS 131a: The Twentieth-Century Russian Novel
RECS 148a: Russian Drama: Text and Performance
RECS 149b: Russian Modernism in Culture and Arts
RECS 150a: Russian and Soviet Cinema
RECS 152a: Russian Science Fiction Literature and Film
RECS 154a: The Art of Vladimir Nabokov

Affiliated Departments/Programs

Comparative Humanities
Comparative Literature and Culture

Full List of Publications

Expand All

All Publications (click to expand)

Powelstock, David. "Konstantin Batiushkov." Rev. of Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry. Presented and Translated by Peter France., by Konstantin Batiushkov. Russian Review vol. forthcoming forthcoming: forthcoming. (forthcoming)

Powelstock, David. "'The Center Cannot Hold': Freedom and Self-Conception in Notes from Underground." Slavic and East European Journal 62. 1 (2018): 26-41.

Powelstock, David. "“Komu zhe verit’, esli ne sebe? Tret’ia sub”ektnaia pozitsiia v stikhotvorenii Lermontova ‘Ne ver’ sebe’”." Mir Lermontova: Kollektivnaia monografiia. Ed. M. N. Virolainen and A. A. Karpov. St. Petersburg, Russian Federation: Skriptorium, 2015. 219-227.

Olesha, Yurii. "Speech to the First Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers, 1934." Sovlit.com vol. n/a. n/a Trans. Powelstock, David. (2009): n/a.

Powelstock, David. "Reinventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century." Rev. of Reinventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century, by Diana Greene. Slavic and East European Journal vol. 51:2 Summer 2007: 397-98.

Powelstock, David. "Writing as Exorcism:The Personal Codes of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol." Rev. of Writing as Exorcism:The Personal Codes of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol, by Ilya Kutik. Slavic Review vol. 66:3 Fall 2007: 564-65.

Powelstock,David. "Violent Outcomes: Mikhail Lermontov and Romanticism's Insoluble Problems.." Times of Trouble: Violence in Russian Literature and Culture.. Ed. Marcus Levitt and Tatyana Novikov. University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. 30-41.

Powelstock, David. ""In the Poet's Defense" (transl. with commentary of of A. Ragozin, "V zashchitu poeta," Pravda, 25 August 1939)." Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Ed. Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 309-312.

Powelstock,David. "Fashioning 'Our Lermontov': Canonization and Conflict in the Stalinist 1930s." Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Ed. Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 281-307.

Powelstock,David. Becoming Mikhail Lermontov: The Ironies of Romantic Individualism in Nicholas I's Russia. Northwestern University Press, 2005.

Powelstock,David. "Burying the Elegiac Corpse: Selfhood in Pushkin's Late Lyrics." Pushkin Review / Pushkinskii vestnik (2000): 81-132.

Powelstock,David. "Living Into Language: Mikhail Lermontov and the Manufacturing of Intimacy." Russian Subjects: Empire, Nation, and the Culture of the Golden Age. Ed. Greenleaf, Monika and Stephen Moeller-Sally. Northwestern University Press, 1998. 297-324.

Powelstock,David. "Loving the Ineffable: Lermontov's Poetics of Desire." Romantic Russia (1998): 49-93.

Powelstock,David. "Mikhail Iur'evich Lermontov." The Age of Pushkin and Gogol: Poetry and Drama. Ed. Christine Rydel. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 206, Detroit: Gale Research Publications, 1998. 179-205.

Powelstock,David. "Bakhtin o poezii. Zametki ["Bakhtin's Views on Poetry"].." Russkii stikh: Metrika, Ritmika, Rifma, Strofika. Ed. Bak, Dmitrii, et al. Moscow: RGGU, 1996. 221-228.

Powelstock,David. "The Rhythmic Structure of Valerii Briusov's Three-Stress Dol'nik Line." Russian Verse Theory: Proceedings of the 1987 Conference at UCLA (= UCLA Slavic Studies). Ed. Scherr, Barry P. and Dean S. Worth., 1989. 235-252.