IRYNA SHUVALOVA is a scholar of culture, politics, and society in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. She is particularly interested in how political imaginaries are constructed through culture in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Shuvalova holds a PhD in Slavonic Studies from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge scholar, and an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College, where she was a Fulbright scholar. Her most recent scholarly publications in REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and in East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies explore identity narratives of the Russo-Ukrainian war through popular songs. Her current research examines how the symbolic space of 'Russianness' is manufactured by the occupying regime in Ukraine's territories controlled by Russia.
Shuvalova is an award-winning poet and translator. She authored five books of poetry, including Pray to the Empty Wells (2019), available in English. Her most recent collection Stoneorchardwoods (2020) was named book of the year in Ukraine. In 2009, she co-edited 120 Pages of ‘Sodom,’ the country's first anthology of queer writing. Her poetry has been translated into 25 languages and published internationally, including in Modern Poetry in Translation, LitHub, Words Without Borders, and others. She is a member of PEN Ukraine. Her new poetry collection Endsongs is forthcoming in early 2024.
Teaching:
UiO:
SLAV1001 – History, Politics, and Society in Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova
SLAV2101/2102 – Ukrainian for Slavists
SEU1300 – Literature and Society in Eastern Europe
SEU2504 – Film in Eastern and Central Europe, and the Balkans
University of Cambridge:
2017 – 2019: Ukrainian Language and Culture
Fall 2018: Russian Grammar for Ab-Initio Learners (tutorials)
Research:
Current Project: "Constructing Russianness in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine Through Culture: Actors, Strategies, Geopolitical Implications"
PhD Thesis: “Voices of the War in Donbas: Exploring Identities in the Affected Communities Through the Prism of War Songs” (academic supervisor Dr Rory Finnin; thesis examiners Prof. Vitaly Chernetsky and Dr Uilleam Blacker)
Tags:
Ukraine,
Russo-Ukrainian War,
Political Imaginaries,
Symbolic politics,
Performative memory,
Popular Culture,
Popular Music,
Identity and Othering,
Propaganda
Selected publications
Peer-reviewed articles:
Shuvalova, I. 2022. ‘Moskal's’, ‘Separs’ and ‘Vatniks’: The Many Faces of the Enemy in the Ukrainian Satirical Songs of the War in Donbas. East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies 9 (1): Ukrainian Culture and the War in the Donbas: 177-200.
Shuvalova, I. 2021. ‘The Timeless Opolchenets’: Popular Songs and the Making of the Donbas Insurgent. REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 6 (1): 103-134.
Shuvalova, I. 2020. ‘I Will Understand You, Brother, Just Like You Will Understand Me’: Multilingualism in the Songs of the War in Donbas. The Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 6 (1): 103-134.
Peer-reviewed chapters:
Shuvalova, I. 2023. ‘”I Am Now a Knife”: Transgressive Femininities in the Songs of the War in Donbas’ in Freedom Taking Place: War, Women, and Culture at the Intersection of Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus. Wilmington: Vernon Press. 37-51.
Book reviews:
2021. Sonevytsky M. Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine and Heritage Hansen et al. A War of Songs: Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations . The Slavonic and East European Review , Vol. 99, No. 2, April 2021.
Essays:
2024. Sjuvalova, I. Heimover. Syn og Segn.
2022. Shuvalova, I. Before the War, I Was. The Scholar.
2021. Shuvalova, I. Mova, v iakii ia zhyvu. Krytyka (translation).
2021. Shuvalova, I. The Mova I Live in. London Ukrainian Review (reprint).
2021. Shuvalova, I. The Mova I Live in [Part of 'Ukraine at 30' series]. The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Books of poetry:
2024. Shuvalova, I. Kinechni Pisni (Endsongs). Lviv: VSL.
2020. Shuvalova, I. Kaminsadlis (Stoneorchardwoods). Lviv: VSL.
2014. Shuvalova, I. Az. Kyiv: Elektroknyha.
2014. Shuvalova, I. Os. Kyiv: Smoloskyp.
2011. Shuvalova, I. Ran. Kyiv: Smoloskyp.
Books of poetry in translation:
2025. (Fothcoming). [Italian] Shuvalova, I. (Untitled translation project).
2025 (Forthcoming). [Norwegian] Shuvalova, I. Ingen Planar Om å Bli Verande. Oslo: Aschehoug.
2023. [Polish] Shuvalova, I. Niewyrażalne. Krasnogruda: Dwór Miłosza.
2019. [English ] Shuvalova, I. Pray to the Empty Wells. Sandpoint, ID: Lost Horse Press.
Edited volumes:
2009. Shuvalova, I., A. Pozdniakova and O. Barlih (eds.). Sto dvadtsiat storinok 'Sodomu': antolohiia kvir-literatury (120 Pages of 'Sodom': The Queer Literature Anthology). Kyiv: Krytyka.
Translations:
2024. (Forthcoming) Poems in Ukrainian Literary Modernism. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
2024. (Forthcoming) Poems in Jewish-Ukrainian Poetry [working title]. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
2023. Slyvynskyi, Ostap. Winter King. Sandpoint, ID: Lost Horse Press.
2021. Poems in Bazhan, Mykola. Quiet Spiders of the Hidden Soul. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
Published
Aug. 1, 2023 1:17 PM
- Last modified
June 27, 2024 1:24 PM
