Ann Komaromi (Ph.D. 2001, University of Wisconsin-Madison) researches late Soviet culture, samizdat (underground publishing) and dissidence in the USSR. Komaromi’s articles and books theorize the formation of alternative publics and epistemologies in samizdat, while attending to specific texts and groups. She is interested in the return of modernism and avant-garde in nonconformist and oppositional literary and art movements in the late twentieth century and beyond. Current projects include studies of dissident memoirs and archives, a history of Jewish activism in Leningrad, and an inquiry into trash and used objects in post-War visual art and museum exhibits.
Fellowship Research Project—Soviet Dystopia and Alternate Networks of Trust
This project examines networks of trust within and beyond the USSR in response to disillusionment with Soviet utopia. It makes use of literary and historical methods to investigate dissident memoirs and testimony as structured narratives and material texts that pass through transnational circulation. A critical focus on gender and ethnic identity – with special attention to the testimony of women as well as that of activists of the Jewish national movement and Ukrainian dissidents – will produce new knowledge about unfamiliar figures and fresh insights into well-known dissidents and their values against the background of real socialism.
