Eliot Borenstein

Professor Of Russian; Collegiate Professor

Eliot Borenstein is Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies and Senior Academic Convenor for the Global Network at New York University. He has three books forthcoming: Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World Inside Your Head (Cornell, 2022), Meanwhile, in Russia…: Russian Internet Memes and Viral Video (Bloomsbury, 2022),  Soviet-Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism (Cornell, 2023). He is now writing HBO’s The Leftovers: Mourning and Melancholy on Premium Cable and Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny.

More information can be found on his website: https://www.eliotborenstein.net

Education

Ph.D. 1993 (Slavic languages and literatures), M.A. (Slavic languages and literatures), Wisconsin (Madison); B.A. 1988 (Russian language and literature), Oberlin College

Areas of Research/Interest

Russian contemporary literature and cultural studies, conspiracy theories, Internet culture.

Selected Publications


Pussy Riot: Speaking Punk to Power (Bloomsbury, 2020)

Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (Cornell University Press, 2019) (winner of the 2020 Wayne S. Vucinich book prize and 2020 AATSEEL book prize)

Overkill:  Sex Violence, and Russian Popular Culture after 1991 (Cornell University Press, 2008) (winner of the 2008 AWSS book prize)

Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929. Duke (2000) (winner of the 2001 AATSEEL book prize)

Russian Postmodernism: Dialogue with Chaos  by Mark Lipovetsky (editor and co-translator). M. E. Sharpe (1999). 

“Borders Unpatrolled:  Imaginary Geographies and the Spaces of Performance in Russian Viral Video.” Buckler, Julie and Julie Cassiday.  Russian Performances. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018. 139-147

“Dystopias and Catastrophe Tales after Chernobyl.” Evgeny Dobrenko and Mark Lipovetsky (eds.). Russian Literature since 1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 86-103