My transnational research uncovers the surprising connections, both real and imagined, between US reformers and Russian terrorists at the turn of the century. I am deeply interested in the US-Russia relationship and the way the United States has long seen Russia as its “dark twin.” My research argues that the stories of Russian terrorist women helped to humanize the Russian people in the American imagination, producing a sympathy for Russian revolution that became unimaginable after the October Revolution in 1917 which brought the Bolsheviks to power.
My research has been supported by several Binghamton University fellowships and grants. I have also received important funding from the U.S. State Department for Russian language study. Two Title VIII grants supported two summers of intensive Russian training at Indiana University and I was fortunate to receive a highly competitive Critical Language Scholarship to Vladimir, Russia in 2017. I am very grateful for these grants and one of my major research goals is to share my knowledge of Russian history, culture, and politics in order to support a deeper and more meaningful discourse between the U.S. and Russia.
To hear more about my research and its contemporary relevance, check out my 2019 Ignite Talk at Binghamton University:
Publications
I recently published a peer-reviewed document collection in the Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000. My project, entitled “Progressive Reformers, the Russian Revolution, and the Politics of Friendship: America Women’s Ties to Revolutionary Catherine Breshkovsky,” explored the relationship between a Russian revolutionary women and American suffragists and settlement house workers. I argue that their shared ideas about human progress & a belief in women’s positive political influence helped unite these women before WWI. The arrival of world war, however, and its attending nationalist movements, severely damaged this connection.
I described my document collection and how I came to this topic in the video below:
I currently have an article forthcoming for the Massachusetts Historical Review about the relationships between former Boston abolitionists and Russian terrorists in the 1880s. It will be published in Summer 2022.
My book reviews have been included in Women and Social Movements, 1600-2000, the New York History Journal, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Upcoming Presentations
I will be presenting on the Free Russia movement and the question of legitimate violence in the Progressive Era at the 2022 OAH in Boston.
