Department of History

Personal Statement:

I am interested in comparative issues of penal systems in China and the former Soviet Union, as well as in historical memory, commemoration practices, sites of conscience and intergenerational trauma.

Currently, I am exploring the experiences of prisoners (both political prisoners and common criminals), the so-called ‘returnees’, after they were released from the Gulag and Laogai labor camps in the Soviet Union and Maoist China respectively. Many returnees were forbidden to reside in major cities and had to settle in remote territories, sometimes in the vicinities of the very camps they were previously imprisoned in. I am interested in these practices of “internal colonization” and the processes of re-entry into society. 

I received a doctoral degree in Modern Chinese Literature from St. Petersburg State University in 2014.

Selected Publications:

Alexandra Nikitina, The Song of Ouyang Hai: The Destruction of an Ideal Hero. Archiv Orientalni: Journal of African and Asian Studies, 83, 2015, pp. 117–136.

Courses Taught:

Graduate Teaching Assistant:
World History (HIST 2C): 1700–Present (Fall 2019)

Lecturer:
Chinese (Mandarin), Classical Chinese; Chinese Ancient, Medieval and Modern Literature at Moscow State Linguistic University (2017-2018)

Language Instructor:
Chinese (Mandarin) and Classical Chinese at St. Petersburg State University, School of Asian and African Studies (2013-2016)
Chinese (Mandarin) at the Confucius Institute of St. Petersburg State University (2011-2016)

Awards & Professional Activities:

Emil Steck Jr. Fellowship (UCSB) (2018-2019)
UCSB Chancellor’s Fellowship (2018-2024)
Training Program for Overseas Sinologists organized by the PRC Ministry of Culture and Chinese Writers’ Association (2015)
Library Travel Grant from Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and European Association for Chinese Studies (2012), University of London, School of Asian and African Studies 
Fulbright Fellowship (2012-2013) Finalist (Alternate)
Chinese Consulate General in St. Petersburg Scholarship (2008-2009) Language Trainee Program at Central China Normal University
Fulbright Fellowship (2008-2009) Semifinalist 
Chinese Embassy in Moscow Scholarship (2006-2007) Exchange Program at North-Eastern Normal University

Member of UCSB interdisciplinary Memory studies group.

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