Klimova's diverse professional and academic interests include visual and popular culture of the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods, instructional technology, instructional design, online teaching and learning, and curriculum development. She is also a program director of The STARTALK Russian Summer School and a regional chair for The ACTR Olympiada of Spoken Russian.
Education & Training
- M.S.Ed., Instructional Technology, Duquesne University, 2015
- PhD in Russian Literature and Culture, University of Pittsburgh, 2013
- PhD certificate in Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2013
- PhD certificate in Cultural Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2008
- MA in Russian Literature, University of Pittsburgh, 2007
- MA in Popular Culture, Brock University, Canada, 2005
- Specialist, Instructor of Cultural Studies, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus, 2001
Courses Taught
- Russian Language (Beginning through Fourth-Year Russian)
- Russian Culture
- Forbidden Love on Screen and Page
- Man and Superman: Representations of the Superior Individual in Culture
- Sci-Fi: East and West
- History of Russian Film
- Russian Fairy Tales
- Masterpieces of 20th Century Russian Literature
- Masterpieces of 19th c. Russian Literature
- Russian Newspapers & Magazines
- Russian Conversation Practice
- Readings in Russian Literature
Representative Publications
“Zulfiquor Musakov’s Boys in the Sky and Boys in the Sky 2.” Directory of World Cinema: Central Asia. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd. Forthcoming.
“Ali Khamraev’s BoBaBu.” Directory of World Cinema: Central Asia. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd. Forthcoming.
“El'er Ishmukhamedov’s Lovers.” Directory of World Cinema: Central Asia. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd. Forthcoming.
“Nikita Mikhalkov’s At Home Among Strangers, A Stranger at Home.” Military Encyclopedia of Russia and Eurasia. Ed. William Reger. Gulf Breeze: Academic International Press. Forthcoming.
“Sergei Solov'ev’s 2-Assa-2.” Directory of World Cinema: Russia 2. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd, 2015.
“Aleksandr Rogozhkin’s The Peculiarities of the National Fishing and The Peculiarities of the National Hunt in the Winter Period.” Directory of World Cinema: Russia 2. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd, 2015.
“Iaropolk Lapshin’s Game without Rules.” Directory of World Cinema: Russia 2. Ed. Birgit Beumers. London: Intellect Ltd, 2015.
“Sergei Paradzhanov’s The Color of Pomegranates.” The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films. Eds. Sabine Haenni, Sarah Barrow, John White. London: Routledge, 2015.
“Reading Other People’s Letters in the 1970s: Reconstructing Soviet Spectatorship in Il'ia Averbakh’s Other People’s Letters.” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review (April 2013): 1-35.
“Anti-Soviet Kitsch in Perestroika Melodrama: Sergei Solov'ev’s Assa.” Studies in Slavic Cultures X (October 2012). University of Pittsburgh. Department of Slavic Languages: 47-59.
“Aleksandr Rogozhkin 'Osobennosti natsional'noi okhoty' (1995).” Noev kovčeg russkogo kino. Ot 'Sten'ki Razina' do 'Stiljag'. Braguinski, Nikita, Vassilieva, Ekaterina. eds. Vinnytsia: Globus-Press, 2012. 453-7.
“Il'ia Averbakh 'Chiuzhie pis'ma' (1975).” Noev kovčeg russkogo kino. Ot 'Sten'ki Razina' do 'Stiljag'. Braguinski, Nikita, Vassilieva, Ekaterina. eds. Vinnytsia: Globus-Press, 2012. 307-11.
Research Interests
- Censorship in culture, youth culture and cinema
- Late-Soviet and post-Soviet literature and culture
- Eastern European and Central Asian cinema
- Chernobyl
- Technology in Education and Language Teaching and Learning
- Gamification
Representative Conference Presentations
"Exploring National Identity and Universal Values in Kazakh Partisan Films by Adilkhan Yerzhanov." The 51st Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), San Francisco, 2019
“Discovery-Based and Task-Based Learning through Virtual Reality in a Language Classroom.” STARTALK Fall Conference, Phoenix, 2019
"Re-imagining The Borderland: Heterotopic 'Other' Land in Russian Cinema of the 1990s." The 50th Convention of ASEEES, Boston, 2018.
“Non-Normative Sexuality in Russian Youth Cinema under Putin.” The 2018 Cultural Studies Association Conference, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 2018
“From New Babylon to King Lear: The Kozintsev-Shostakovich Collaboration,” Guest Lecturer, The Kennan Institute, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 2018
“Technology for Interactive Language Teaching: Using Online Interactive Whiteboards for Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational Modes of Communication,” East Asian Language and Literatures Colloquium Series, March 30, 2018
“Aleksei Petrukhin’s The Teacher and Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Student: Politicizing Russian Youth Cinema in the 2010s.” American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) Conference, Washington DC, 2018
“ePortfolios and Project-Based Learning for Second Language Assessment,” (a poster presentation), 2018 Assessment and Teaching Conference, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Pittsburgh, 2018
“Resisting the System: Transgressive Teenagers in Valeriia Gai Germanika’s Films,” Discussant: Panel “National Identity in the Cinema of the Soviet Republics.” 49th Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Chicago, 2017
“Surviving Censorship in the 2010s: Russian Youth Films and the State,” Canadian Association of Slavists' Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, 2017
"Visualizing the Invisible: The Construction of the Memory of Chernobyl in Visual Culture,” Memory as Politics: An Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Pittsburgh, May 6, 2017
“'Reimagined' Space in Contemporary Kazakh Cinema: Connections to the Land and Reconstructed Families in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Films,” AATSEEL Conference, Austin, Texas, 2016
“The 'Liberated' Urban Space in Soviet Cinema under Brezhnev,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Montreal, Canada, 2015
“Nowhere to Run: Russian Youth in Natalia Meshchaninova's The Hope Factory (2014),” Guest talk, The Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University, Ohio, 2015
Global Awareness Workshop for secondary education students, “The World Around Me,” Guest speaker, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and the Urban League’s African American Achievement Trust, 2014
Roundtable “Technology in Education,” Roundtable facilitator, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, 2014
“Literary Idols of the 19th Century in Sergei Solov'ev’s Youth Films,” AATSEEL Conference, Boston, 2014
Employment Since Graduation
Lecturer/Director of the Russian Program, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 2020-current
Lecturer/Acting Director of the Russian Program, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 2019-2020
Visiting Lecturer, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 2017-2019
Merton Humanities Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow, Mercyhurst University, 2015 – 2016
Dissertation Title and Year
Soviet Youth Films under Brezhnev: Watching between the Lines, 2013