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Felix Helbing

  • Resident Director, RLASP Yerevan, American Councils for International Education

Felix Helbing is a PhD student in Slavic Literature at the University of Pittsburgh with a background in digital advertising and video game localization. Broadly speaking, his research investigates the intersection of technology and the human body during two vastly different historical periods: early Soviet Russia and the contemporary United States. Currently, Felix is focusing on Soviet movement theorist Aleksei Gastev’s philosophy of labor and the interaction of technology and the working body, especially relevant today as technological advances alter the landscape of the workplace and the worker’s role within it. His additional research interests include digital media, particularly video games, biohacking (technology’s integration into the body—from pacemakers to embedded microchips to FitBits), and the philosophical and scientific writings of Aleksandr Bogdanov.

    Education & Training

  • BA, Russian Literature, Dickinson College
Awards
Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), University of Pittsburgh, Academic Year 2020-2021
Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), University of Pittsburgh, Academic Year 2019-2020
Davis Student Travel Grant, ASEEES, 2019
Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), University of Pittsburgh, Academic Year 2018-2019
Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), University of Pittsburgh, Summer 2018
Ivan Elagin Memorial Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, Spring 2018
Representative Publications

ASEEES National Convention, Online Presentation: “The Body Problem: Bodily Integrity and Ecological Anxiety in Bogdanov’s Red Star,” November, 2020.

ASEEES National Convention, San Francisco, CA, Presentation (panel organizer and presenter): “The Body Soviet: Aleksei Gastev’s Stakhanovism and the Quantified Self, ” November, 2019.

Research Interests
  • Soviet Taylorism
  • Digital media
  • Game studies