Curriculum Vitae
Work Experience
- Novetta. Montpelier, VT.
Senior Open Source Analyst.March 2019 - present
Open Source Analyst. June 2016 -
February 2019.
- Leading reporting for advanced analytics project monitoring strategic communications and influence campaigns in Europe.
- Providing Russian language and Former Soviet Union area studies expertise to open source media intelligence projects.
Educational Degrees
- University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, PA, 2007-2016.
- Ph.D., Russian Literature. April 2016.
Dissertation:
"Territory and Empire in Early Soviet Poetry."
- M.A., Russian Literature. December 2009.
- The College of William & Mary. Williamsburg, VA.
2002-2006
- B.A. Russian Studies, physics minor, cum laude. May 2006.
Non-Degree-Granting Education
- Middlebury College. Middlebury, VT.
- Russian School, Summer 2011: Graduate Program
- German School, Summer 2008: Level 1
- Russian School, Summer 2006: Level 7
- International University in Moscow. Moscow, Russia.
- Sept.-Dec. 2011
- Department of Russian as a Foreign Language
- Grant: American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), Title VIII
Research and Training Fellowship
- Center for International Education, Moscow State
University. Moscow, Russia.
Fellowships and Grants
- National
- U.S. Student Fulbright Award to Kazan′, Russia, 2014-15.
- ACTR Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Fellowship
(Moscow, Russia). Sept.-Dec. 2011.
- University of Pittsburgh
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, Russian,
2015-16.
- Cultural Studies Fellowship, 2013-14.
- Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for the Humanities,
2012-13.
- FLAS Fellowship, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, 2009-10; Russian,
2015-16.
Publications
- Peer-Reviewed
- "The 'cinematic poetry' of the Thaw." Studies in Russian and
Soviet Cinema 12.1 (January 2018): 1-17. DOI: 10.1080/17503132.2017.1415520
- Birnbaum, David J., and Elise Thorsen. "Markup and meter: Using XML
tools to teach a computer to think about versification." Presented
at Balisage: The Markup Conference 2015, Washington, DC, August 11 -
14, 2015. In Proceedings of Balisage: The Markup Conference
2015. Balisage Series on Markup Technologies, vol. 15
(2015). doi:10.4242/BalisageVol15.Birnbaum01.
- Book Reviews
- Review of Svitlana Malykhina's Renaissance of Classical
Allusions in Contemporary Russian Media. In Slavic and
Eastern European Journal 61.2 (Summer 2017): 382-383.
- Review of Nila Friedberg's English Rhythms in Russian Verse: On
the Experiment of Joseph Brodsky. With David J. Birnbaum.
In Language 90.3 (September 2014): 765-767.
- Review of Nariman Skakov's The Cinema of Tarkovsky: Labyrinths
of Space and Time. In Slavic and East European
Journal 57.1 (Spring 2013): 127-128.
- Review of Jamie Miller's Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion
under Stalin. In Slavic and East European Journal
55.1 (Spring 2011): 125-127.
- Film Reviews and Program Notes
Invited Lectures
- "Pagans."
Russian Film Symposium, University of Pittsburgh. 1 April 2018.
- "Shared Time and Imagined Community: Celebrating the Feat of the
Cheliuskin in Verse Works." Department of World Languages and
Cultures, Mercyhurst University. 17 February 2016.
- Also presented at:
- Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of
Pittsburgh. 27 January 2016.
- "Force of Habit: Modes of Time in Verse Works on the Cheliuskin Saga."
Russian and Post-Soviet Studies Program, College of William & Mary. 23
October 2015.
- Elise Thorsen and David J. Birnbaum. "Enabling the Automated Identification
and Analysis of Meter and Rhyme in Russian Verse." Information Science
seminar "The Digital and the Humanities." University of Pittsburgh. 1
October 2015.
- "Failure to Integrate: Soviet Territory and the Deformed Subject in
Mayakovsky’s Odic Mode." Cultural Studies Fellowship Showcase: "Refracted
Russian Space: Devices of Heterotopias and Defragmentation." University of
Pittsburgh. 4 December 2013.
- "Territory and Empire in Early Soviet Poetry." Russian Club, University of
Pittsburgh. 13 November 2013.
- "From Agitation to Advertisement: Vladimir Maiakovskii and
Reklam-konstruktor." Summer Languages Institute, University of Pittsburgh.
June 2011.
- "Geography and Poetry: Seeing Nikolai Gumilev's Russian Empire through the
Symbolic Presentation of Africa." Center for Russian and Eastern European
Studies, University of Pittsburgh. October 2010.
Recent Conference Papers
- "A Superhero for Our Time: Mazhor’s Igor′ Sokolovskii." ASEEES National Convention. Virtual. 14 November 2020.
- "Watching Game of Thrones in Yekaterinburg: International Streaming in the Russian Media Environment." Aleksanteri Conference. Aleksanteri Institute. Helsinki, Finland. 24 October 2019.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "Rules-based and machine-learning approaches to identifying Russian rhyme." Machiner la poésie/Plotting poetry III. ATILF. Nancy, France. 26 September 2019.
- Also presented at:
- ASEEES National Convention. San Francisco, CA. 25 November 2019.
- "The Hazards of Russianizing Marxism: The Case of The Lay of Ulialaev." AATSEEL Annual Conference. New Orleans. 9 February 2019.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "Visualizing Abstract Features of
Russian Poetry: Meter and Rhyme." ASEEES National Convention. Boston, MA. 6
December 2018.
- Roundtable. "Performing New Media." ASEEES National Convention. Boston, MA. 7
December 2018.
- "Imagining Soviet Community of the Thirties in Il′ia
Sel′vinskii's Cheliuskiniana." International Forum for Young
Scholars of Soviet and Post-Soviet History and Culture. Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Moscow, Russia. 1 December 2018.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "The automatic detection of Russian
rhyme." Machiner la poésie/Plotting poetry II. Free University of Berlin. Berlin, Germany. 12
November 2018.
- "Ideal Readerly Communities on the Soviet Screen." AATSEEL Annual
Conference. Washington, D.C. 3 February 2018.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "Exploring Inexact Rhymes in Russian
Verse." Machiner la poésie/Plotting poetry. Univeristy of Basel. Basel, Switzerland. 6
October 2017.
- Also presented at:
- ASEEES National Convention. Chicago, IL. 11 November
2017.
- "Imagined Community in Konstantin Simonov's 1930s War Poetry." AATSEEL
Annual Conference. San Franciso. 5 February 2017.
- "Classical Allusions and the Specter of Empire in Vladimir Maiakovskii's
Pro eto." AATSEEL Annual Conference. Austin, TX. 9 January
2016.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "Markup and meter: Using XML tools to teach a computer to think about
versification." Balisage: The Markup Conference. Washington, DC. 11
August 2015.
- David J. Birnbaum and Elise Thorsen. "New Developments in Quantitative
Metrics: Enabling the Automated Identification and Analysis of Meter and
Rhyme in Russian Verse." DH: "2015 Global Digital Humanities." Sydney,
Australia. 1 July 2015.
- Also presented at:
- (as first author) "Computational Approaches to Poetry,"
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. 5 June 2015.
- (as first author) "Russian Formalism and the Digital
Humanities," Stanford University. 13 April 2015.
- "Функция национального мифа степи в эпопее И. Сельвинского
Улялаевщина в рамках евразийства." At "Национальный миф в
литературе и культуре: Национальное и историческое." Kazan′ (Volga)
Federal University. Kazan′. 6 May 2015.
- "Some Versions of Ode: Maiakovskii's Politics of Subjective and Soviet
Horizon." AATSEEL Annual Conference. Vancouver, BC. 9 January 2015.
- "Язык епопеи И. Сельвинского Улялаевщина: стилистические
особенности, функции." Conference: "Языки России и стран ближнего зарубежья
как иностранные: преподавание и изучение." Kazan′ (Volga) Federal
University. Kazan′. 19 November 2014.
- "'Soviet Eurasianists': The Global Effect of the Literary Center of
Constructivists' 'Local Semantics' in the Soviet Twenties." AATSEEL Annual
Conference. Chicago. 10 January 2014.
- "Appropriating Odic Motifs to the Soviet Cause: Maiakovskii and His Epigones
on the New Topography." ASEEES National Convention. Boston. 22 November
2013.
- "Reconstructing Constructivist Poetry in the Sixties." Princeton
Conjunction: "Illusions Killed by Life: Afterlives of Soviet
Constructivism." Princeton University. 10 May 2013.
Teaching Experience
- University of Pittsburgh
- T.A., Russ 1420: Fourth-Year Russian, 15 students. Course leader:
Yuliya Basina. Autumn 15.
- Russ 0811: Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture, 10 students.
Online. Stand-alone. Summer 14.
- Russ 0090: Russian Fairy Tales, 20 students. Stand-alone. Summer
13.
- Russ 1066: Forbidden Love on Page and Screen, 20 students.
Stand-alone. Spring 12.
- Russ 0325: Russian Short Story in Context (Writing-Intensive), 15
students. Stand-alone. Spring 12.
- Russ 0040: Intermediate Russian II, 8 students. Team leader:
Kathleen Manukyan. Spring 12.
- Russ 0810: 20th Century Russian Literature (Writing-Intensive), 22
students. Stand-alone. Spring 11.
- Russ 0811: Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture, 54 students.
Stand-alone. Autumn 10.
- Russ 0090: Russian Fairy Tales, 20 students. Stand-alone. Summer
09.
- Slav 0660: Sci-Fi: East and West, 37 students. Stand-alone. Spring
09.
- T.A., Slav 0660: Sci-Fi: East and West, 66 students. Course leader:
Helena Goscilo. Autumn 08.
- T.A., Russ 0020: Elementary Russian II, 25 students. Course leader:
Andrew Chapman. Spring 08.
- T.A., Russ 0090: Russian Fairy Tales, 240 students. Course leader:
Lenka Pánková. Autumn 07.
Professional and Service Activities
- Editor, Studies in Slavic
Cultures, University of Pittsburgh. Issues VIII, X, XI.
2008-09; 2010-13.
- TA Mentor, Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of
Pittsburgh. June 2012-May 2013.
- Organizing Committee Member: Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium. 2008-2014,
2016.
- University of Pittsburgh Representative, AATSEEL Graduate Student Committee.
June 2009-Jan 2016. Chair of AATSEEL Graduate Student Committee. 2012.
- Visiting Speakers Committee, Department of Slavic Languages &
Literatures, University of Pittsburgh. 2009-10; 2012-13.
- Organizing Committee Member: AATSEEL Graduate Student Committee-Sponsored
Early-Career Scholars Series. 2010-2011.
- Graduate Student Representative to Department of Slavic Languages &
Literatures, University of Pittsburgh. June 2008-May 2011.
- Organizing Committee Member: Graduate Student Conference, Graduate
Organization for the Study of Europe and Central Asia, University of
Pittsburgh. 2009-2010.
- Committee on Graduate Funding Policy, Department of Slavic Languages &
Literatures, University of Pittsburgh. 2009-10.
- Representative, Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Association, University
of Pittsburgh. 2007-09.
Translation
- With Priscilla Hunt (Primary Translator). Igor′ Shtyrkov. "The
Unmerry Widow: The Blessed Ksenia of Petersburg in Hagiography and
Hymnography." Holy Foolishness: New Perspectives. Ed. Priscilla
Hunt and Svitlana Kobets. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011.
281-304.
- Intertitles, with Olga Klimova, ed. Vladimir Padunov. Яков Протазанов.
Человек из ресторана. Muzei Kino, Moscow. Autumn 2008.
- Marina Drozdova. "Tremors: Various Types of Unrest."
KinoKultura 21 (July 2008).
Professional and Honor Associations