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Elena Prokhorova

  • Associate Professor, Associate Chair of Educational Policy, College of William and Mary

Courses Taught

  • Russian Media Culture
  • World Cinema Before TV
  • Dostoevsky's Major Novels
  • History of Russian Cinema
  • Elementary through Advanced Russian Language

Dissertation

Fragmented Mythologies: Soviet TV Mini-Series of the 1970s, 2003

Employment Since Graduation

  • Russian Studies Program Director, Associate Professor of Russian Studies, College of William and Mary
  • Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages, The College of William and Mary 2012-present
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, The College of William and Mary, 2008-2012
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, The College of William and Mary, 2006-2008
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Universiity of Richmond, 2005-2006
  • Visiting Instructor, Department of Modern Languages, The College of William and Mary, 2003-2005

    Education & Training

  • PhD, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 2003
  • MA, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 1996
Awards
Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence (2017), College of William and Mary
Phi Beta Kappa Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching (2016)
Alumni Fellowship Award, College of William and Mary (2012)
Co-President, Working Group on Cinema and Television (National Guild of Scholars of Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Cinema and Television), an affiliate of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) (2005-12)
Suzanne Wilson Matthews Research Award (2011), College of William & Mary
Representative Publications

Film and Television Genres of the Late Soviet Era.  Co-authored with Alexander Prokhorov.  NY/London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

“Un/Taming the Unruly Woman: from Melodramatic Containment to Carnivalistic Utopia” (co-authored with Alexander Prokhorov). Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European Cultures: From the Bad to the Blasphemous.  Eds. Yana Hashamova, Beth Holmgren and Mark Lipovetsky.  NY: Routledge, 2016.  30-49.

 “The Man Who Made Them Laugh: Leonid Gaidai, the King of Soviet Comedy.”  Companion to Russian Cinema.  Ed. Birgit Beumers. Oxford/Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. 519-542.

“Sergei Mikhalkov.”  Russkaia literatura XX veka: 30e—seredina 1950kh godov.  Eds. N. L. Leiderman, M. N. Lipovetsky and M. A. Litovskaia.  Volume 1.  Moscow: Akademiia, 2014.  394-406.

“Glamorously (post) Soviet: Reading Yo soy Betty, la fea in Russia.” TV's Betty Goes Global: From Telenovela to International Brand. Eds. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London and NY: I.B.Tauris, 2013. 206-221.

“Gender(ed) Games: Romance, Slapstick, and Ideology in the Polish Television Series Four Tank Men and a Dog.” Embracing Arms: Cultural Representation of Slavic and Balkan Women in War. Eds. Helena Goscilo and Yana Hashamova. Budapest: Central European UP, 2012. 

‘”From the Red Screen to the Multiplex” (co-authored with Alexander Prokhorov). In “ Senses of Cinema-Going: Brief Reports on Going to the Movies Around the World.” Eds. Arthur Knight, Clara Pafort-Overduin, and Deb Verhoeven. Senses of Cinema Issue 58.

“Belorussia Station.” Noev kovcheg russkogo kino: ot “Sten’ki Razina” do “Stiliag.” (The Noah’s Arc of Russian Cinema). Eds. Ekaterina Vassilieva and Nikita Braguinski. Moscow: Globus-Press, 2011. 281-286.

“Flushing Out the Soviet: Common Places, Global Genres and Modernization in Russian Television Serial Productions.” Russian Journal of Communication Vol. 3 Nos. 3/4 (Summer/Fall 2010): 185-204.

Research Interests
  • Soviet and post-Soviet television, film, and literature
  • Media theory
  • Cultural studies