Fellowships

Education

PhD at Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University
MA in Art History, University of Haifa, Israel
BA in Art History and Comparative Literature, University of Haifa, Israel

Selected Publications

• Book manuscript working title: Playing with Culture: Material Worlds of Childhood in Nineteenth Century Russia.
• In Progress: “Rolling the Dice on the Russian Empire: Texts and Images in Nineteenth Century Board Games.” In Words and Pictures: Intersections of Text and Image in Russian Culture to be published in the Princeton Slavic Series. Edited by: Yuri Leving, Mark Lipovetsky, and Tatiana Smoliarova.
• In Progress: “Bad Amusements: The Factory Toy Question in Late Imperial Russia.” Slavic Review.
• Submitted: “Shuffling the Russian Empire: Konstantin Gribanov’s: ‘Geographical Cards of Russia.’” In Fragile Things, edited by Molly Brunson, Emily Cox, and John Webley, planned for publication in 2026.
• 2021: “Zoya Cherkassky’s Collection Judaica: Immigration and the ‘Making Strange’ of Jewish Art.” East European Jewish Affairs 51 (1): 86-105.
• 2020: “The Phenomenon of the ‘New Barbizon’ in Israeli Art.” In Israel: Languages, Society, Culture, edited by Elena Nosenko-Stein and Dennis Sobolev, 333-365. Moscow: The Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2020.
• 2016: “Between Illustration and Icon: The Works by Mikhail Vrubel.” Studii mystetstvoznavchi (The Studies of the History of Art, published by the Institute of Art Studies, Folklore Studies and Ethnology of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences) 4 (56): 58-69.

Honors

• Junior Prize for Outstanding Toy Research, International Toy Research Association (ITRA)
• Princeton University Library Research Grant
• Yale Graduate Impact Fellowship (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Bio

I received my PhD from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University, with advanced training in art history and material culture studies. My research examines how nineteenth-century children’s “play cultures” i.e. their toys, games, and books, as well as the cultural representations of these objects, reflected and helped shape cultural norms around gender, empire, and class in Russia.

Beyond my work on Russia, I am broadly interested in toys and games as bearers of cultural meaning, and in children's alternative play scenarios. I am also interested in contemporary Russophone émigré literature and visual art, especially work created for children.

In addition to my academic work, I am deeply engaged in museums and cultural heritage institutions. Among other places I’ve worked at and held fellowships with institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Yale Center for British Art.

Fields and Interests

• Nineteenth-century Russian literature and visual art
• Toy research
• Material culture studies
• Russophone émigré literature and art
• Jewish studies