Phil,
PhD George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London
Education:
1998 DPhil, Oxford University; 1998 MA (by Hebdomadal Council Resolution), Oxford University; October 1994 – September 1997, Overseas DPhil Scholar, Jesus College, Oxford. 1996 PhD, Sofia University; July 1991 – June 1992: Aspirant, Department of Bulgarian Literature, Sofia. 1990 MA in Slavic Studies, Sofia University. 1988 BA in English & History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University
Phil thesis:
Bakhtin and Lukács: The Theory of the Novel as Social Philosophy (1998)
PhD thesis:
Genre and Consciousness of Genre in Early Bulgarian Modernism
Research Interests: Comparative literature and cultural history, esp. Russian, German, and Central- and East-European culture and thought (19th-20th c.) and German, Russian, Bulgarian and Polish literatures in their relation to intellectual and cultural history (19th-20th c.); world literature; history of ideas; continental, British, and American literary and cultural theory; cosmopolitanism and its genealogies; exile and migration (esp. 20th century Central- and East-European exile); construction of European identities; Marxism and Post-Marxism; Mikhail Bakhtin; Olga Freidenberg; the Russian Formalists; Gustav Shpet; Boris Yarkho; Osip Mandelstam; German Post-Romanticism; German Conservatism (esp. 20th century); Goethe; Dilthey; Simmel; Heidegger; Carl Schmitt; Oswald Spengler; Ernst Jünger; Robert Musil; Hermann Broch; Elias Canetti; Heiner Müller; Alexandre Kojève; Russian avant-garde visual culture.
Professional Service
Professional Committees and Boards
Fellow of the British Academy – since 2021
Member of the Advisory Board, International Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of World Literature, Zhejiang University – since January 2018
Member of the Coordinating Committee of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) – since February 2016
Member of the Executive Committee, Institute for World Literature (Harvard University) – since August 2015
Member of the International Advisory Board, Institute for World Literature (Harvard University) – since January 2014
Honorary Scientific Advisor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) – since April 2014
Honorary President, Committee on Literary Theory of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) – since June 2008
Member of the International Advisory Board, Center for Advanced Study, Sofia – since May 2010
Member of the International University Forum for Curriculum Reform – since October 2009
President of the Committee on Literary Theory of the International Comparative Literature Association (2005–2008)
Member of the Committee on Literary Theory of the International Comparative Literature Association (2001–2005)
Member of the International Advisory Board, Language and Literature Programme, New Bulgarian University, Sofia (2005–2008)
Associate Member of the Research Board, Language and Literature Programme, New Bulgarian University, Sofia (1995–2002)
Advisory/Editorial Boards and Editorship of Scholarly Journals
Member of the International Advisory Board of International Comparative Literature (Shanghai) – since 2018
Member of the International Advisory Board of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature (Hong Kong) – since 2017
Member of the International Advisory Board of Comparative Literature and Culture (USA) – since 2017
Member of the International Advisory Board of Comparative Literature East and West (China) – since 2017
Member of the International Advisory Board of Russian Studies in Philosophy (USA) – since 2017
Member of the International Editorial Board of Studia Litterarum (Moscow) – since 2016
Member of the International Editorial Board of Voprosy literatury (Moscow) – since 2016
Member of the International Editorial Board of The Journal of English Language & Literature (Seoul) – since 2015
Member of the International Advisory Board of Psikhologicheskie issledovaniia (Moscow) – since 2015
Member of the International Advisory Board of Bijiao Wenxue & Shijie Wenxue (比较文学与世界文学 [Comparative Literature and World Literature (Beijing)] – since 2014
Member of the International Advisory Board of Filosofskie nauki (St. Petersburg) – since 2014
Member of the International Advisory Board of Evropa (Tyumen) – since 2014
Member of the International Advisory Board of Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch (Austria) – since 2013
Member of the International Advisory Board of Literaturna misul (Sofia) – since 2012
Member of the International Advisory Board of Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso (Sao Paulo) – since 2012
Member of the International Editorial Board of Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies (UK) – since 2010
Member of the International Advisory Board of Arcadia: International Journal of Literary Culture/Internationale Zeitschrift für literarische Kultur (Germany) – since 2009
Member of the Editorial Board of Slavonica (UK) – since 2008
Member of the International Editorial Board of Comparative Critical Studies (UK) – since 2004
Member of the International Advisory Board of Primerjalna Knijizevnost (Ljubljana) – since 1998
Co-editor, with Maurice Slawinski, of the BCLA journal New Comparison (2001–2003)
Member of the International Advisory Board of Vestnik Tiumenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta (2012–2014)
Member of the Editorial Board of Literaturata, Sofia (1998–2005)
Founding Member of the Editorial Board of Strelets, a student journal for literature and criticism, Sofia (1992)
Advisory Boards and Editorship of Publication Series
Member of the International Advisory Board, Formalisms Monograph Series, Sdvig Press, Switzerland – since 2015
Invited Series Editor, Studies in Comparative Literature and Intellectual History, Academic Studies Press, USA – since 2013
Member of the International Advisory Board, New Comparative Criticism Series, Peter Lang, Germany and Switzerland – since 2012
Member of the International Advisory Board, The Real Twentieth Century Series, Academic Studies Press, USA – since 2011
Member of the International Advisory Board, Language and Literature Series, Mercado de Letras Publishing House, Brazil – since 2010
Member of the International Advisory Board, Brill Balkan Studies Series, Brill, The Netherlands – since 2009
Member of the International Advisory Board, Durham Modern Languages Series, Manchester UP, United Kingdom – since 2009
Member of Manchester UP Editorial Committee (2009–2011)
Peer-Reviewing and External Consulting
Invited Member, European Science Foundation College of Expert Reviewers – since 2018
Invited Member, European Research Council Grants Evaluation Panel (2010–2017)
Invited Member, International Evaluation Panel, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (2014; 2015; 2016)
Invited Member, International Evaluation Panel, Romanian National Research Council (2015; 2016; 2017; 2018)
Invited Member, International Evaluation Panel, Romanian Government Review of PhD provision at Romanian Universities and Romanian Research Assessment Exercise (2011)
International Reviewer, Centre for Comparative Literature and Programme in Literature and Critical Theory, University of Toronto (2015)
International Assessor, The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2015)
International Assessor, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Joint Graduate School for German-Russian Cultural Relations, University of Freiburg and RGGU (2014)
International Expert, Ranking of Philological Journals in the Russian Federation (2014; 2015)
International Nominator, Gerda Henkel Stiftung Prize (2017; 2018)
International Nominator and Evaluator, The Efim Etkind Prize (2014)
International Assessor, Polish Science Foundation Prize in the Humanities (2013)
Member, Sub-Panel 50 (European Studies) for UK Research Assessment Exercise 2008
Member, CEELBAS PhD Scholarships Steering Group (2014)
Member, AHRC PRC Strategic Reviewers’ Group (2013–2014)
Member, AHRC Peer Review College (2004–2014)
LBAS Funding Evaluator (CEELBAS and CRCEES, 2014–2016 funding period)
Evaluator of article submissions to Ab Imperio; Arcadia; Canadian Slavonic Papers; Clio; Comparative Critical Studies; Dialogism; International Political Sociology; Knowledge Cultures; Kritika; Modern Intellectual History; Modern Language Review; Mosaic; Musil-Forum; Neohelicon; PMLA; Poetics Today; Proceedings of the Osaka University Graduate School of Language and Culture; Revue des Études Slaves; Russian Journal of Communication; Russian Literature; Slavic Review; Slavic and East European Journal; Slavonic and East European Review; Slavonica; Slovo; Stasis; Studia Phaenomenologica
Evaluator of book proposals and manuscripts for Oxford UP; Cambridge UP, Cornell UP; Stanford UP; Johns Hopkins UP; Indiana UP; Northwestern UP; University of Toronto Press; Purdue UP; Manchester UP; Edinburgh UP; Routledge; Verso; Continuum; Bloomsbury; Pluto; Springer; Legenda; Macmillan/Palgrave; Anthem; Ghent Academic Press; HSE Press; Moscow State UP
Evaluator of grant applications for The European Research Council (ERC); The European Science Foundation (ESF); The Leverhulme Trust; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); The British Academy; AHRC; The Carnegie Trust; The Rockefeller Foundation; Stiftung Landis & Gyr; The Newton Trust; The Kone Foundation; The Royal Irish Academy; The Minerva Foundation; Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen (FWO); Austrian Science Fund; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); Icelandic Research Fund; Romanian National Research Council; Polish National Science Centre; National Research Fund of Kazakhstan; Basque Government Science Foundation (Ikerbasque); Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS); Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS); Centre for Advanced Study (CAS), Sofia; Trinity College, Cambridge; Clare College, Cambridge; Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow
External Evaluator for Promotion to Professor: University of Southern California, 2004; University of Pennsylvania, 2009; Trinity College Dublin, 2012; Goldsmiths, University of London, 2012; University College London, 2013; University of Munich (LMU), 2017
External Evaluator for Promotion to Senior Lecturer/Reader/Associate Professor: University of Sheffield, 2005; Exeter University, 2010; Essex University, 2012; Durham University, 2013 and 2017; University of Helsinki, 2013
External Assessor: Appointment to the Chair of Comparative Literature, Turku University, 2015; Appointment to the Chair of Slavic Literatures, University of Cologne, 2013; Appointment to the George Steiner Chair of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary, University of London, 2011 (invitation declined)
External Member of Habilitation Juries: Tübingen University (2017); Université Paris-7 (2012)
External Tenure Reviewer: Department of Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, 2015; Division of the Humanities, New College of Florida, 2015; Department of Slavic Languages, Brown University, 2013; Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 2013; Department of German, Princeton University, 2012; Department of Russian, New York University, 2012; Department of German and Russian, Pomona College, 2012; Department of English, University of Cyprus, 2010; Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Florida, 2010 (invitation declined)
External consultant to the Encyclopaedia of Modern Literary Theory (2 Vols.), edited by the Institute for Literary Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2005–2010)..
External consultant to the Bulgarian Ministry of Education on teaching materials for the Grade 7 literature curriculum (2004)
External consultant to Maney Publishing on the profile and the launch of Journal of European Thought (2004)
Academic Leadership
Co-founder and Secretary of the Ivan Vazov Society for the promotion of Bulgarian Literary Studies, 1992–1993
Organiser of a special session on Russian literary and cultural theory (1920s–1930s) at the BASEES annual conference, Cambridge, 1999
Organiser of the panel “Gustav Shpet between literature and philosophy” at the AAASS annual convention, 1999
Co-organiser of the International Conference “In the Master’s Absence: The Unknown Bakhtin Circle”, University of Sheffield, 7–9 October 1999
Organiser of the panel “Carl Schmitt among the Poets” at the Annual Convention of the American Association for the Study of Law and the Humanities, New York, 2003
Co-organiser of the symposium “European Writers at the Margins”, Lancaster University, 2001
Invited member of the international Research Group on Russian Diasporic Culture – since 2004
Author of the conception for a European Identities Research Centre, Lancaster University, 2006
Co-organiser (with Prof. Vera Tolz) of the International Colloquium on Eurasian and European identities in the post-communist space, Lancaster University, June 2007
Founding Director of the PhD Programme, Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC) at The University of Manchester (2007–2010)
Co-organiser (with Prof. David Adams) of the RICC symposium “Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism”, Manchester, November 2008
Co-organiser (with Prof. Ian Reeder and Prof. Hong Liu) of the RICC symposium “Cosmopolitanism and East-Asian Cultural Flows”, Manchester, April 2009
Co-organiser (with Prof. Gyan Prakash) of a series of two symposia, “Genealogies of Cosmopolitanism”, jointly with the Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton), Manchester and Princeton, 2008–2009
Co-organiser (with Prof. Boris Gasparov and Prof. Georg Witte) of the International Conference “Rethinking the 1930s”, Freie Universität Berlin and Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, June 2010
Invited Member, Academic Advisory Board for the 14th International Bakhtin Conference (Bologna, 2011)
Invited Member, Academic Committee for the International Conference “The Cold War and the Social Sciences and Humanities in Russia and the West” (Moscow, 2013)
Invited Member, International Programme Committee for the International Conference “Hundred Years Russian Formalism” (Moscow, 2013)
Invited Member, Academic Advisory Board for the 15th International Bakhtin Conference (Stockholm, 2014)
Co-organiser (with Prof. David Damrosch) of two workshops on “Comparative World Literature” at the 2014 ACLA convention (New York, 2014)
Co-organiser (with Tatiana Zhurzhenko) of the conference “Eurasianism: Evolution and Relevance”, Institute of Human Sciences (Vienna, 2015)
Co-organiser (with Prof. Thomas Pavel) of the workshop “Roots of Realism” (University of Chicago Paris Centre, 2015)
Invited Member, Academic Advisory Board for the International Conference “À l’épreuve de l’Europe: Regards croisés d’Europe occidentale et de Russie sur les réflexions normatives dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales” (Bordeaux, 2015)
Invited Member, Academic Advisory Board for the 16th International Bakhtin Conference (Shanghai, 2017)
Awards and distinctions
2020 Winner of the AATSEEL Best Book in Literary Studies for The Birth and Death of Literary Theory: Regimes of Relevance in Russia and Beyond (Stanford UP) (2019)
2017 Tudor Vianu Lecture, University of Bucharest
2017 The Distinguished Friends Lecture, Yonsei University, Seoul
2016 The Daxia Lecture, East China Normal University (ECNU), Shanghai
2016 Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Distinguished Lecture, NTU, Singapore
2015 Invited Professor, Seoul National University
2014 Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Humanities, Peking University
2014 Appointed Honorary Scientific Advisor, Institute of Foreign Literatures, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
2013 Elected Member of Academia Europaea
2012 The Efim Etkind Prize for Best Book on Russian Culture (with E. Dobrenko), awarded for A History of Russian Literary Theory: The Soviet Age and Beyond, ed. E. Dobrenko and G. Tihanov, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011; and Istoriia russkoi literaturnoi kritiki: sovetskaia i postsovetskaia epokhi, ed. E. Dobrenko and G. Tihanov, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2011
2012 The Mihály Babits Lectures (Eötvös Loránd University, Central European University, and Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest)
2011 First Holder of the George Steiner Chair of Comparative Literature
2010 Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
2009 Harriman Institute Lecture (Columbia); Botstiber Lecture (Rutgers)
2008 Honorary President, ICLA Committee on Literary Theory
2007 Fellow, Collegium Budapest
2006 University Personal Research Grant, Lancaster University
2005 Faculty of Arts and Humanities Personal Research Grant, Lancaster University
2004 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship
2003 Lancaster University Research Prize (Award letter of 16 May 2003: ‘The prize is awarded in recognition of your outstanding innovative work in German and Russian intellectual history, particularly the conceptual dialogue between Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács, in comparative literature, and in Slavic literary theory and its debt to modern European philosophy.’)
2003 DAAD Research Travel Grant
2003 British Academy Overseas Conference Travel Grant
2002 UK Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) Research Leave
2001 Research Support Grant, Lancaster University
1999 Oppenheimer Fund Lecture Grant to deliver three invited lectures at Witwatersrand University (Johannesburg) and the University of Cape Town
1999 Sasakawa Fund Lecture Grant to give three invited lectures at Osaka University and Tokyo University
1998 Hyter Research and Travel Grant, The Oriental Institute, Oxford University
1997 Publication Grant from the German Foundation for the Support of Bulgarian University Education (for The Consciousness of Genre of the “Misul” Circle. Towards a Cultural Biography of Bulgarian Modernism)
1996 Illchester Research and Travel Grant, Centre for Slavonic Studies, Oxford
1994 The Overseas Graduate Scholarship of Jesus College, Oxford; 64 applicants for one award; all disciplines considered (October 1994 – September 1997)
1994 Award from the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme, Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the UK (renewed for 1995/6 and 1996/7)
1993 Open Society Research Grant (Prague) for a project on Nietzsche and the Rise of Slavic Modernism
1993 Soros & Foreign Office Visiting Scholarship at New College, Oxford (October 1993 – July 1994)
1992 A Research Scholarship from the Central European University (Budapest) in Literary Theory
1989 The Rector's Prize for Talented Students in the Humanities, Sofia University
Academic publications
Major works
Monographs
- The Birth and Death of Literary Theory: Regimes of Relevance in Russia and Beyond. Stanford, Stanford UP, 2019.
- Cosmopolitanism: A Very Short Introduction, ms. under contract with Oxford UP.
- Narrativas do Exílio: Cosmopolitismo além da Imaginação Liberal [Narratives of Exile: Cosmopolitanism beyond the Liberal Imagination], São Carlos, SP, Pedro & João Editores, 2013.
- The Master and the Slave: Lukács, Bakhtin, and the Ideas of Their Time. Oxford, Clarendon Press and New York, Oxford UP, 2000 (Polish translation, 2010; Portuguese-Brazilian and Chinese editions in preparation).
- Zhanrovoto suznanie na kruga “Misul”. Kum kulturnata biografiia na bulgarskiia modernizum [The Consciousness of Genre of the “Misul” Circle. Towards a Cultural Biography of Bulgarian Modernism]. Sofia, Academia, 1998.
- Tekstove vurkhu bulgarskata literatura sled Vuzrazhdaneto [Interpretations. Texts on Bulgarian Post-Revival Literature]. Sofia, Sofia UP, 1994.
Edited collections
- (co-editor and contributor) Die bulgarische Literatur der Moderne im europäischen Kontext: Zwischen Emanzipation und Selbststigmatisierung? Munich, Otto Sagner, 2013.
- (co-editor and contributor) A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism: The Soviet Age and Beyond. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011.
- (co-editor and contributor) Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism. London, Legenda, 2011.
- (co-editor and contributor) Istoriia russkoi literaturnoi kritiki: Sovetskaia i postsovetskaia epokhi. Moscow, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie Publ., 2011.
- (co-editor and contributor) Critical Theory in Russia and the West. London and New York, Routledge, 2010; paperback ed. 2011 (Chinese translation, 2016).
- (editor and contributor) Gustav Shpet’s Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory. West Lafayette, IN, Purdue UP, 2009.
- (co-editor and contributor) A Companion to the Works of Robert Musil. Rochester, NY, Camden House, 2007 (paperback 2011).
- (co-editor and contributor) The Bakhtin Cicrle: In the Master’s Absence. Manchester and New York, Manchester UP, 2004.
- (co-editor and contributor) Materializing Bakhtin: The Bakhtin Circle and Social Theory. London and New York, Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 2000 (reprinted 2002).
Teaching experience
September 2011 – George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London.
August 2007 – August 2011: Professor of Comparative Literature and Intellectual History and Founding Co-Director, Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures, The University of Manchester.
November 2003 – July 2007: Professor of Comparative Literature, Lancaster University.
June 2002 – October 2003: Reader in Comparative Literature and Intellectual History, Department of European Languages and Cultures, Lancaster University.
October 2000 – May 2002: Lecturer in European Studies, Department of European Languages and Cultures, Lancaster University.
October 1997 – September 2000: Junior Research Fellow in Russian and German Intellectual History, Merton College, Oxford (228 applicants for a total of four JRFs in eight eligible disciplines).
August 1992 – August 1995: Lecturer in Bulgarian Language and Culture at the International Summer Seminars in Bulgarian Studies organised by Sofia University and by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and at the Bulgarian-American Fulbright Seminar.
June 1992 – September 1993: Assistant Professor of Bulgarian literature, Sofia University.
September 1990 – June 1991: English language teacher for a private school in Sofia.
Visiting Appointments
Invited Professor, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow (May 2016 to December 2018).
Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, Seoul National University (April 2015).
Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Humanities, Peking University (April 2014).
Professor of Literary Theory, University of Sao Paulo (August 2013).
Professor of Intellectual History, St. Gallen Universität (Autumn Semester 2012).
Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University (Spring Semester 2007).
