Two professors in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies have been promoted, demonstrating excellent performance in teaching, service and research.
Dr. Benjamin Jens is promoted from Assistant Professor of Practice to Associate Professor of Practice; and Dr. Colleen Lucey is promoted from Assistant Professor to tenured Associate Professor.
Dr. Jens received his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His main area of research is 19th-century Russian literature – especially the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky – with a focus on the relationship between literature, discourse, and Eastern Orthodoxy. He also has research interests in Eastern European cinema, science fiction, and cultural ties between the Western Balkans and Russia.
Dr. Lucey is an affiliated member of the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching interdisciplinary Ph.D. program, the Human Rights Practice Program, and the Institute for LGBT Studies. She earned a B.A. in Russian from Barnard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of nineteenth-century Russian culture, gender and sexuality studies, terrorism and literature, and Russian language pedagogy. She is the author of Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia (NIU Series, Cornell University Press, 2021), which won the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) Best First Book Award. Her articles have appeared in a variety of journals, including Folklorica, The Russian Review, The Russian Language Journal, and Slavic and East European Journal. Her current book project examines the image of Russian and East European women terrorists in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century fiction, art, and drama.