Anna Tropnikova
Research Interests:
Transnationalism, posthumanism, adaptation in novel media, animation, subjectivity and non-conformism in 20th-century Slavic and Japanese film, 19th-century Eastern European literature, contemporary Eastern European documentary
Education:
M.Phil Yale University (2023)
Hon. B.A. (cum laude) in Russian and Eastern European Studies, University of Chicago (2016)
B.A. in Visual Art, University of Chicago (2016)
Conference Presentations:
“Rock. Paper. Grenade: Screening and Q&A with director Iryna Tsilyk.” Yale University Humanities Quadrangle, New Haven, CT, USA: March 2024
“Inheriting Ukrainian Avant-Gardes: Kira Muratova’s Sentimental Policeman (1992) and Abram Room’s A Strict Youth (1936).” Society For Cinema and Media Studies. Boston, MA, USA: March 2024
“Determining Signs: from Dostoevsky to Kurosawa.” American Comparative Literature Association. Montreal, QC, Canada: March 2024
“Iryna Tsilyk’s Filmed Subjects as Co-creators of Donbas Documentary.” Association of Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies 55th Annual Convention. Philadelphia, PA, USA: December 2023
“Filmed Objects as Subjects: Representation of Survivors in Donbas Documentary.” Re/Framing Eastern European Cinema Conference. Princeton, NJ, USA: October 2023
“Thresholds and Hands: Transgression through Corporal Space in Kurosawa Akira’s Idiot.” XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society. Nagoya, Japan: August 2023
“Corporal Reclaiming of Nationalist Geographies: Wim Wenders and W.G. Sebald’s Reconstruction of Real in Postwar Germany.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. Los Angeles, CA, USA: November 2022
“Voyeurism and Abjection in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘White Nights.’” North American Dostoevsky Society. International Virtual Symposium: November 2022
“The Earth is Blue as an Orange: Introduction and Discussion of Iryna Tsilyk’s Film.” Amherst Cinema, Amherst, MA, USA: May 2022
“Introducing Kurosawa Akira’s The Idiot.” Yale Film Archive and Council on East Asian Studies, New Haven, CT, USA: April 2022
“The Superflat of ‘the Prophet’: Holograms of Alexander Pushkin’s Poetry,” American Comparative Literature Association. Virtual Conference: April 2021
Publications:
“Book Review: The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, or the Art of Speaking Differently.” The Russian Review 83, no. 1 (2024): 300-2. doi.org/10.1111/russ.12615
“Imitation of the Nonhuman: Wladislaw Starewicz’s Entomological Cinema.” Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe 16, no. 1 (2023): apparatusjournal.net. doi.org/10.17892/app.2023.00016
(Scheduled:)
“Art Mediating Crisis: Documentaries on Children in Illegitimate National Spaces.” In Russian Contemporary Documentary, edited by Masha Shpolberg and Anastasia Kostina. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
“Filmed Objects as Subjects: Representation of Survivors in Donbas Documentary.” In Re/Framing Eastern European Cinema, edited by Yuri Leving. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 2025.
Directed Films:
“In the Infinite Blissful Space Between World and Flight,” director. PATCHWORK Literary Journal: Film x Poetry. Season 2 (Summer 2021): https://counterclock.org/past-seasons
Artwork:
Fellowships and Awards:
Symposium Travel Grant Recipient, North American Dostoevsky Society, 2023
European Studies Council Graduate Fellowship, Yale University, 2022-2024
Council on East Asian Studies’ Summer Language Mini-Grant Recipient, Yale University, 2021
Summer Language Institute Scholarship, University of Chicago, 2021
George V. Bobrinskoy Award for Excellence in the Study of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 2016
Honors Track Studio Grant Recipient, Department of Visual Arts, University of Chicago, 2015
Annual Spring Festival of the Arts Grant Recipient, University of Chicago, 2015
Silver Medal in National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest (NPSREC), Heritage Learners, Level 2, 2013