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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.
  • Sept. 2006-June 2007.

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
  • Review of Yang Ge's Trinity Sunday (2019). In KinoKultura 69 (July 2020).
  • Review of Andrei Volgin's Balkan Line (2019). In KinoKultura 66 (October 2019).
  • Review of Sergei Mokritskii's Rough Draft (2018). In KinoKultura 63 (January 2019).
  • Review of Lera Surkova's Pagans (2017). In KinoKultura 59 (January 2018).
  • Review of Denis Shabaev's Not My Job (2015). In KinoKultura 54 (October 2016).
  • Program Notes to Zhora Kryzhovnikov's Kiss Them All! 2 (2014). Russian Film Symposium: "Recycle, Restage, Rewind." 2016.
  • Review of Nosir Saidov's Mirror without Reflection (2014). In KinoKultura 49 (July 2015).
  • Program Notes to Vasilii Sigarev's Living (2011). Russian Film Symposium: "Gendering Genre." 2014.
  • Review of Aleksandra Strelianaia's The Sea (2013). In KinoKultura 43 (January 2014).
  • Program Notes to Sergei Loban's Chapiteau-Show: Love and Friendship (2011). Russian Film Symposium: "Re-Imagining Class: Recent Russian Cinema." 2013.
  • Program Notes to Mikhail Segal's Short Stories (2011). Russian Film Symposium: "Re-Imagining Class: Recent Russian Cinema." 2013.
  • Review of Evgenii Abyzov, et al.'s Mamas (2012). In KinoKultura 38 (October 2012).
  • Program Notes to Renata Litvinova's The Goddess: How I Fell in Love (2004). Russian Film Symposium: "Camp Cinema: Russian Style." 2012.
  • Program Notes to Aleksandr Medvedkin's Happiness (1934). Co-authored with Theodora Kelly Trimble. Russian Film Symposium: "Camp Cinema: Russian Style." 2012.
  • Program Notes to Anna Fenchenko's Missing Man (2010). Russian Film Symposium: "Other Russias, Russia's Others." 2011.
  • Review of Nikolai Lebedev's Soundtrack of Passion (2009). In KinoKultura 20 (October 2010).
  • Program Notes to Boris Khlebnikov, et al.'s Crush (2009). Russian Film Symposium: "From Art-House to Cine-Plex." 2010.
  • Program Notes to Larisa Sadilova's Sonny (2009). Russian Film Symposium: "From Art-House to Cine-Plex." 2010.
  • Review of Stanislav Govorukhin's The Passenger (2008). In KinoKultura 28 (April 2010).
  • Program Notes to Aleksandr Proshkin's Live and Remember (2008). Co-authored with Irina Anisimova. Russian Film Symposium: "The New Positive Hero." 2009.
  • Program Notes to Mikhail Kalatozishvili's Wild Field (2008). Russian Film Symposium: "The New Positive Hero." 2009.
  • Program Notes to Larisa Sadilova's Nothing Personal (2007). Russian Film Symposium: "The Ideological Occult." 2008.

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

• Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies
• American Association of Teachers of Eastern European Languages
• Working Group for Cinema and Television
• Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Virginia
• Dobro Slovo

Contact Elise Nicole Thorsen