Dr Isobel Palmer

• PhD University of California, Berkeley (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
• MA University of California, Berkeley (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
• BA University of Cambridge (Russian and German)

I joined the Modern Languages Department at Birmingham in September 2018. I completed my MA and PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where I taught Russian and Czech language, Russian literature, and college composition, and held a fellowship in Global Urban Humanities. I hold a BA in Russian and German from the University of Cambridge.

In 2018/19, I am teaching Core Russian modules in Year 2 (Language in Context), Year 4 translation (Russian to English), and Russia Unwrapped, a module on Russian culture and identity. I am supervising final year dissertations and students for the MA in Practical Translation.

• Russian poetry (19th-21st Century)
• Russian Formalism and literary theory
• Comparative modernisms
• (Modernist) performance culture
• Thaw culture
• Urban humanities
• Intersections between literature and new media.

Find out more - our PhD Russian Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research draws on theories and methods from literary theory, media theory, sound and performance studies, and urban theory to investigate the relationship between art and society in twentieth- and twenty first-century Russia and the Soviet Union.

My current book project, Vital Signs: Rhythm, Image and Voice in Russian Modernist Poetry and Theory 1905-1922, addresses the continued currency in Russia of traditional poetic forms alongside radical modernist experimentation during the turbulent period surrounding modernization, urbanization, and the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. It argues that modernist poets and formalist theorists regarded the formal devices of poetry as a kind of technology and as the means by which poetry could actively intervene in the social, political, and historical circumstances of their time.

My new project concerns public poetry performance and issues surrounding public space and the public sphere in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. This project examines poetry’s capacity to create communities, and offers a timely perspective on debates surrounding the role of poetry and literature more generally as a space for social engagement, intervention, and change.

Dr Palmer is acting Subject Liaison for Russian 2018-19 and convenor for Core III/IV and Year 4 Core, and Tutor for the Summer Course in Russia.

Examples of recent talks and conference participation:

• Invited talk, “Poetry as Medium: Russian Modernism and Rhythm in ‘A Time without Time’”. Vanderbilt University (December 2017)
• Round table, “Transgressing the Text: Form vs. Emotion in Russian Literary Theory and across Disciplines.” Annual Meeting of ASEEES (November 2017)
• Discussant, “Sounds out of Bounds: Obscenity, Noise, Laughter, and the Tuning of the Russo-Soviet Soundscape.” Annual Meeting of ASEEES (November 2017)
• Paper, “The Rhythm of History: Blok’s prosody and the revolution of 1905.” Berkeley-LMU Symposium (Munich, June 2017)
• Panel co-organizer, “Old/New Media in Russia and Eastern Europe.” Annual Meeting of AATSEEL (San Francisco, February 2017)
• Discussant, “Ugly Intimacies: An International Workshop.” UC Berkeley/Danish Independent Research Council (Berkeley, May 2016)
• Paper, “Orality, Technology, and the Russian Modernist Poetry Evening.” California Slavic Colloquium (USC, April 2016)
• Panel co-organizer, “Thinking/Feeling Lyric.” Annual Meeting of AATSEEL (Austin, January 2016)

Memberships and Professional Associations:

• Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies [ASEEES]
• American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages [AATSEEL]