minor in creative writing nyu

Published January 14, 2021

A Creative Writing Minor Complements Any Major

Staff Writer

At NYU, anyone can become a writer. Across the University’s Abu Dhabi, New York City, and Shanghai campuses, students find the rigor and inspiration necessary to hone their craft. And they’re not all aspiring journalists, poets, or novelists. Students studying a range of disciplines find that a creative writing minor can enrich any field of study.

“Creative writing can teach anyone to express themselves confidently, creatively, and effectively,” affirms NYU Abu Dhabi assistant professor of practice, literature, and creative writing Miguel Syjuco. “If you become a biologist, you can write op-eds to tell the world why your research is important. If you’re a politician, you can give the best speeches. That makes creative writing possibly the single most important, unexpected thing a student can take.”

Psychology and Poetry in Shanghai

When Yixuan Cui, a Social Science major, started at NYU Shanghai , creative writing was a foreign concept. “I just knew I loved reading and writing down random thoughts in my journal,” she says. “It was hard at the beginning. Since I was writing in my second language, I struggled to find the right words. But my professor encouraged me to keep going, and eventually, I realized my passion.” While Yixuan has completed all her minor requirements, she intends to continue writing through an independent study.

Because NYU Shanghai’s Creative Writing minor program is still growing, “Students have a real opportunity to lead and shape what kinds of programming we offer,” explains Professor Jennifer Tomscha, director of NYU Shanghai’s Writing Program. The program is “both of the city and of the world,” she adds. “Nearly all of our students are fluent in or learning Chinese and English. So, the writers we read reflect the diversity of our students.” Living and learning in such a vibrant city, students have access to a variety of programming, from readings by Pulitzer Prize–winning writers to student-run poetry slams.

Additionally, due to the program’s small size, writers of all stripes have ample opportunity to share their work. For example, the Reading Series brings together students and faculty to read their poetry, short stories, or drafts in an intimate setting. Students also take advantage of location-specific programming. In March 2019, students attended a writers’ retreat at Jiuhuashan, one of Chinaʼs four holy Buddhist mountains. There, they read, wrote poetry, hiked to temples, and reflected on their place in the world. Yixuan says, “Storytelling is a critical tool to communicate, connect, and influence people. My Creative Writing minor has made me a storyteller. And more than that, it’s given me space to recharge. It’s given me joy.”

Numbers and Words in New York City

At NYU’s campus in New York City, Creative Writing minors take advantage of everything the distinguished program and dynamic city have to offer. Faculty members include renowned authors and poets, allowing students to learn from an exceptional and diverse array of talent.

“NYU’s writing program is unique because the professors are so talented and successful,” says Aurora Huiza, a College of Arts and Science English major and Creative Writing minor. “Plus, many of the faculty members who teach graduate-level courses also teach undergraduates. You can learn so much from them.” The program also includes regular Reading Series events, which bring acclaimed writers and editors to campus for conversations and book signings. In addition, students have numerous opportunities for workshopping and publication, including the student-edited undergraduate literary journal West 10th , where Aurora is a prose editor. “At West 10th , we appreciate and encourage undergraduate written work. Getting your work seen is a really special opportunity,” she explains.

For Johanna Dong, a senior at the NYU Stern School of Business, creative writing provides both escape and structure. Her Creative Writing minor keeps her motivated, ensuring that she writes regularly. “As a Business major with co-concentrations in marketing and econometrics and quantitative economics, the content of my classes doesn’t overlap much,” she laughs. “But it’s really nice to have a mix of quantitative and creative classes. And surprisingly, people consider creative writing an interesting and differentiating aspect of my background. At first, I thought I should choose a minor more directly related to economics. But now, I really believe that you should go for whatever is interesting to you. If youʼre passionate about something, others will pick up on that—no matter what.”

Computers and Self-Expression in Abu Dhabi

The first time Máté Hekfusz held a pen, he knew he’d found a lifelong passion in creative writing. But over the years, it remained a hobby as he took classes in math and pursued a career in tech. When he came to NYU Abu Dhabi , he planned to major in Computer Science. Then he saw the range of multidisciplinary minors, including his beloved creative writing. After an introductory course, he was hooked. “We have amazing professors, fascinating courses, and great workshopping. I love getting feedback from both my professors and peers,” he says. And NYU Abu Dhabi’s Literature and Creative Writing program is unique in that it combines the two fields. Moreover, the program’s small size lends itself to a particularly involved student and professor population. Majors and nonmajors alike contribute to the Gazelle , the school newspaper, and Airport Road , its literary publication.

While most are surprised to learn that a Computer Science major is also studying creative writing, Máté has found that his minor has made him a better computer scientist. “Creative writing makes you better at expressing yourself. And that’s a crucial skill in tech,” he says. “From code commenting to presenting your work to writing business emails—all of these require self-expression. Creative writing teaches you how to weave words and craft stories. You can use those skills to write a fantasy epic, but you can also pitch your dream project in the office. You’re sure to win over any audience.”

At the same time, he advises would-be Creative Writing minors not to get hung up on what they’ll do with their minor. “Colleges like NYU Abu Dhabi (and NYU at large) offer the incredible opportunity to put together your own education. We are all complex people with many interests. Donʼt be afraid to dive into any of them.”

Literature Courses That Read Between the Lines

Stories come off the page and into the world in a literary translation course at NYU Abu Dhabi and a literature course at NYU Shanghai.

NYU Abu Dhabi: Picture Yourself Here

Have a look at NYU’s degree-granting campus in Abu Dhabi, where your college experience will be anything but conventional.

A Reading Series with Something for Everyone

The world's best writers flock to New York City, and you can meet them and hear them read right on campus.

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Writers in Paris 2024

Writers in Paris (May 24, 2024 - June 22, 2024) students choose to focus on poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction , and attend daily writing workshops, craft seminars, and literary readings and events. Writing and reading assignments are designed to encourage immersion in the city. For example, poets might visit the Louvre to write ekphrastic poems or create Parisian street sonnets by taking a 14-block walk of the St. Denis area, where François Villon lived, and generating a line of poetry per block. Fiction writers might study dialogue by listening for overheard speech at a sidewalk café or learn about description and setting by writing a story set in the neighborhood where Hemingway lived and worked.  

Recent visiting writers and editors include Kaveh Akbar ,  Charles Bock, Anne Carson, Sandra Cisneros, Lydia Davis, Mariana Enríquez, Nick Flynn, Terrance Hayes, Aleksandar Hemon, Edward Hirsch, Ann Hood, Marie Howe, Leslie Jamison, Etgar Keret, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Rachel Kushner, Nick Laird, Ben Lerner, David Lipsky, Valeria Luiselli, David Mitchell, Nadifa Mohamed, Paul Muldoon, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Claudia Rankine, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Taiye Selasi, Kamila Shamsie, Brenda Shaughnessy, Charles Simic, Tracy K. Smith, Zadie Smith, Hannah Tinti, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Ocean Vuong, among many others .

Writers in Paris is open to eligible NYU and visiting (non-NYU) undergraduates:

Priority Admissions Deadline: February 1, 2024

General Admissions Deadline: March 1, 2024

Rolling Admissions: through April 2024 (if spaces remain available!)

*Interested in receiving updates about Writers in Paris 2024? Fill out  this form . And follow the NYU Creative Writing Program on  Facebook  and  Twitter !*

2024 Faculty

Catherine Barnett (Poetry) is the author of four poetry collections,  Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space (2024 Graywolf); Human Hours  (2018 Believer Book Award in Poetry and New York Times "Best Poetry of 2018" selection),  The Game of Boxes  (James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets) and  Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced (Beatrice Hawley Award). A Guggenheim fellow, she received a 2022 Arts and Letters Award in Literature, which honors exceptional accomplishment. Her work has been published in the  New Yorker ,  The New York Review of Books , The Nation , and  Harper’s , among many other places. She teaches in the NYU Program in Creative Writing and works as an independent editor.

Alex Dimitrov (Poetry) is the author of three books of poems,  Love and Other Poems ,  Together and by Ourselves , and  Begging for It . His poems have been published in  The New Yorker , the  New York Times ,  The Paris Review , and  Poetry.  In addition to NYU, he has taught writing at Princeton University, Columbia University, and Barnard College. Previously, he was the Senior Content Editor at the Academy of American Poets, where he edited the popular series  Poem-a-Day  and  American Poets  magazine. With Dorothea Lasky he is the co-author of  Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac.  He lives in New York.

Nathan Englander 's (Fiction) most recent novel is kaddish.com. He is also the author of the Dinner at the Center of the Earth, the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, as well as the internationally bestselling story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and the novel The Ministry of Special Cases (all published by Knopf/Vintage). He was the 2012 recipient of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for What We Talk About. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Vogue, and Esquire, among other places. His work has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories and numerous editions of The Best American Short Stories, including 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories. Translated into twenty-two languages, Englander was selected as one of “20 Writers for the 21st Century” by The New Yorker, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He’s been a fellow at the Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and at The American Academy of Berlin. In 2012 Englander's translation of the New American Haggadah (edited by Jonathan Safran Foer) was published by Little Brown. He also co-translated Etgar Keret's Suddenly A Knock at the Door and Fly Already, published by FSG. His play The Twenty-Seventh Man premiered at the Public Theater in 2012, and his new play, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, winner of a 2019 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and the 2020 Blanche and Irving Laurie Theatre Visions Fund Prize, was commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater and ran at The Old Globe in San Diego. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University and lives with his family in Toronto.

Katie Kitamura ’s (Fiction) most recent novel is Intimacies . One of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021, it was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2021. Her third novel,  A Separation,  was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of Gone To The Forest and The Longshot , both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award.

Hari Kunzru (Creative Nonfiction) is a Clinical Professor in the Creative Writing Program. He holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University and an MA in Philosophy and Literature from Warwick University. He is the author of six novels, including  White Tears , a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award, the Kirkus Prize, the Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, One Book New York, the Prix du Livre Inter étranger, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His latest novel Red Pill was published in 2020 by Knopf. He is also the author of  The Impressionist ,  Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men  and a short story collection,  Noise . His novella  Memory Palace  was presented as an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2013. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Guardian, New York Review of Books, Granta, Bookforum, October and Frieze. He has written screenplays, radio drama, and experimental work using field recordings and voice-to-text software. He has taught at Hunter College and Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. He has been a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin. He is a past deputy president of English PEN, a judge for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize and has been a frequent presenter, interviewer and guest on television and radio.

Raven Leilani ’s (Fiction) debut novel Luster (2020) was awarded the Kirkus Prize, Dylan Thomas Prize, NBCC John Leonard Prize, VCU Cabell First Novel Prize, Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, among others. Her work has been published in Granta , The Yale Review , McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern , Conjunctions , The Cut , and New England Review , among other publications. Leilani received her MFA from NYU and was an Axinn Foundation Writer-in-Residence . She was also selected as a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. In 2022 she served as the John Grisham Fellow at the University of Mississippi and teaches creative writing at NYU.

Parul Sehgal (Creative Nonfiction) is a staff writer at  The New Yorker . She was previously a columnist and senior editor at  The New York Times Book Review  and a book critic   for  The New York Times.  Her work has appeared in  The Atlantic, Slate, Bookforum, The New Yorker, Tin House,  and  The Literary Review,  among other publications, and she was awarded the Nona Balakian Award from the National Book Critics Circle for her criticism.

Darin Strauss (Fiction) is the internationally bestselling author of the novels  Chang and Eng, The Real McCoy ,  More Than it Hurts You , the NBCC-winning memoir,  Half a Life , the comic-book series,  Olivia Twist, and most recently the acclaimed novel, The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story (Random House, 2020). A recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Library Association Award, and numerous other prizes, Strauss has written screenplays for Disney, Gary Oldman, and Julie Taymor. His work has been translated into fourteen languages and published in nineteen countries, and he is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Creative Writing Program.

Brandon Taylor (Fiction) is the author of the novels  The Late Americans  and  Real Life , which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a  New York Times Book Review  Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection  Filthy Animals , a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is the 2022-2023 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Deborah Landau  (Director) is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently  Skeletons , which was named one of  The New Yorker’s  “Best Books of 2023.” She is also the author of  Soft Targets  (winner of the Believer Book Award),  The Uses of the Body ,  The Last Usable Hour , and  Orchidelirium , selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Robert Dana Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her other honors include a Jacob K Javits Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.  The Uses of the Body  was featured on NPR’s  All Things Considered , and included on “Best of ″ lists by  The New Yorker, Vogue, BuzzFeed , and  O, The Oprah Magazine . A Spanish edition,  Los Usos Del Cuerpo , was published by Valparaiso Ediciones. Her work has appeared in  The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, New York Review of Books ,  The Nation ,  APR, Poetry, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times , and three volumes of  The Best American Poetry , and anthologized in  Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation, Not for Mothers Only, Resistance, Rebellion, Life ,  The Best American Erotic Poems , and  Women’s Work: Modern Poets Writing in English . Landau was educated at Stanford University, Columbia University, and Brown University, where she received a Ph.D. in English and American Literature. She is a Professor at NYU, where she directs the Creative Writing Program.

2024 PROGRAM INFORMATION

Program Dates  May 24, 2024 - June 22, 2024

Program Schedule Monday-Thursday

3:00pm - 5:30pm: Alternating days of writing workshops and craft seminars (each student is assigned to both a workshop and a craft seminar and has the opportunity to study closely with two accomplished faculty members)

6:00pm - 8:00pm: Daily readings & talks by acclaimed guest writers and editors (see a sample readings & events calendar  here ) 8 Points of Undergraduate Credit Open to eligible NYU and Non-NYU Students

CONTACT INFORMATION

For questions about the application process, eligibility, costs, financial assistance and general study abroad:

NYU Summer Study Abroad Phone: 212-998-4433 For academic questions: NYU Creative Writing Program Phone: 212-998-8816 Email: [email protected]

Writers in Paris (Past Years) Gallery

NOTE TO NYU STUDENTS :

The eight credits earned by this intensive program constitutes half of our Minor in Creative Writing . Participation in two summer intensives (Writers in Paris, Writers in Florence, Writers in New York) fulfills the entire minor.

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Creative Writing

The Creative Writing concentration is designed for beginner through experienced writers who wish to develop their craft. Through studio classes in poetry, prose, and performance, you will concentrate on generating texts and learning the conventions of particular genres and forms. You also will participate in interdisciplinary humanities seminars that bring together reading, writing, theory, and method.

Build Your Audience

Improve as a writer with practice and feedback and increase your audience through publication in our literary and arts journal, Dovetail.

Faculty Contact

Dr. Clif Hubby

(212) 992-8397

[email protected]. 

Requirements

Creative writing concentration: craft studios category.

Students select four credits from Craft Studios and four credits from Workshops and an additional eight credits from either category.

• CWRG1-UC5243 The Craft of Playwriting 4
• CWRG1-UC5242 Poetry Studio 4
• CWRG1-UC5241 Prose Studio 4

Creative Writing Concentration: Workshops Category

Students select four credits from Workshops and four credits from Craft Studios and an additional eight credits from either category.

• CWRG1-UC5277 Creative Nonfiction Workshop 4
• CWRG1-UC5271 Fiction Workshop 4
• CWRG1-UC5272 Poetry Workshop 4
• CWRG1-UC5280 Writing for Children & Adolescents 4
• CWRG1-UC5275 Writing for The Screen 4
• CWRG1-UC5273 Writing for The Theater 4
• MEST1-UC6050 Digital Storytelling 4
• MEST1-UC6013 Writing for Media and Communication 4

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Creative Writing Minor

The minor in Creative Writing is open to all NYUAD students and offers students an opportunity to hone their skills in self-expression while exploring a full range of literary genres, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, literary journalism, dramatic writing, and screenwriting.

All courses a student wishes to count toward the minor in Creative Writing, including those taken at another NYU global site, must be approved in advance by the student's mentor. Only one course may double-count for the minor in Creative Writing and another major or minor.

Literature and Creative Writing Major

Literature Minor

Literature and creative writing at nyuad, meet our faculty, arts and humanities at nyuad.

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Creative Writing (Minor)

In an era of increasing complexity and rapid change, more and more university students are drawn to the study of creative writing. When we write, we begin to make sense of the world; when we read great writing -- a perfect metaphor, a stunning poetic turn, an apt description, or a living character -- we are reminded of how language can change our own worlds. At NYU Shanghai, the Creative Writing minor is appropriate for students who wish to develop their skills in self-expression, to analyze and explore a variety of literary genres, and to join a larger community of writers in Shanghai. Through practiced literary analysis and the creation of their own stories and poems, our creative writing students become better storytellers and better critical readers. They learn to articulate their own life experiences, to resist cliche, to analyze human motivations, and to investigate beauty. Students spend time in small workshops with fellow writers, engaging in the fruitful sharing and critique of one another’s work. Creative writing opportunities extend beyond the classroom and include the 9th Floor Literary Salon, our annual Student Poetry Competition, and the NYU Shanghai Literary Reading Series, which brings a number of visiting writers to campus. Our Creative Writing minors play an integral and active role in developing the literary community both here at NYU Shanghai and in the larger urban community.

A minor in Creative Writing prepares students for a life in the literary arts, sharpening students’ capacities with language and invigorating their imaginations. The work of the Creative Writing minor also develops skills useful for successful future careers in film, music, journalism, translation, marketing, psychology, and teaching, among numerous other possibilities.

The Creative Writing minor consists of sixteen credits of progressive coursework, including two intermediate writing seminars in the genre of the student’s choice.

There is currently no content classified with this term.

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Grandma Nai

Directed by Chheangkea

Length: 20:00 Producers: Karen Madar, Daniel Mattes Editor: Chheangkea Cinematographer: Shyan Tan Sound Designer: Vincent Villa

Long deceased and living at her tomb, Grandma Nai’s peaceful afterlife is disrupted by her oversized family’s obnoxious yearly visit. When she learns of her favorite grandson’s impending engagement to a woman, Grandma Nai follows her family out of the tomb to intervene in the meeting between the two families and help her grandson stand up for himself.

Graduate Film

[email protected]

Chheangkea is a Cambodia-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He obtained a Bachelor's degree in architecture from MIT and is currently in his thesis year as a Dean’s Fellow at the NYU Tisch Graduate Film Program. His latest short film, “Skin Can Breathe,” is a finalist for the HBO Max APA Visionaries competition and is distributed by Max.

Chheangkea is currently developing his feature film chronicling two decades of a Cambodian woman's life after the Khmer Rouge regime, while simultaneously in post-production for his upcoming short film, “Grandma Nai,” supported by the Fonds Image de l'Organisation de la Francophonie. In addition, he is a 2023-2024 fellow for the Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film.

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Puzzling out Moscow for visitors under 30

Navigation games on the streets and conversation clubs in hostels are all part of the fun of figuring out Moscow when you’re young at heart. Source: Press Photo.

Hugging strangers, reciting poetry and looking for bird-shaped graffiti is not usually part of a city tour—but Moscow Game Tour is no ordinary company.

Nikita Bogdanov, 25, founder of the company, says: “It’s not a regular tour, it’s a quest. You interact with Russian people, and you gain more experience.”

Moscow Game Tour is one of a new breed of innovative tours run by and for young people. They are either low-cost or free, and prioritise interacting with locals over traditional sightseeing.

Mr Bogdanov started Moscow Game Tour in 2009 to encourage visitors to explore areas outside the city centre. In the tour, which costs 700 roubles (about $22), participants are “players” and complete challenges that lead them to clues in the shape of a matryoshka doll.

Discovering fairy-tale Moscow

Strolling around the Kremlin

Discovering a glorious corner of paradise

Many tasks involve asking passers-by for directions or trying a Russian phrase. Along the way, players discover interesting features such as a monastery canteen, or a Socialist Realist statue.

Some clues are easier to locate than others. “There was one spot that we absolutely could not find,” says Vera Baranova, 25, who took part in a quest at Tsaritsyno Park in south-east Moscow. “When we asked someone, it turned out that we were actually right on top of it.”

Mr Bogdanov also operates the Moscow Free Tour, which provides an overview of major sites between Kitai Gorod and the Kremlin free of charge. In peak season, this more traditional outing attracts between a dozen and 40 people every day; the Game Tour runs only once or twice a week and usually attracts between five and 10 participants. Convincing visitors to sign up for an unconventional tour can be a challenge. “The Free Tour is more popular because it’s more easily understandable,” Mr Bogdanov says. “For the Game Tour, you need to explain to people what it is.”

Business has picked up as Mr Bogdanov has formed relationships with hotels, major tour agencies including TUI and companies such as Google. This year, he also began receiving support from Moscow’s Committee for Tourism and the Hotel Industry, which has launched a programme called “Moscow Fresh” to support creative tourism.

Moscow Game Tour is one of a new breed of innovative tours run by and for young people. Source: Press Photo.

In addition to the Free Tour and Game Tour, Mr Bogdanov’s company offers daily paid-for tours with a variety of themes. The retro Communist Tour visits central Soviet landmarks, including the Lubyanka (former headquarters of the KGB); the Gulag Museum; a Soviet-style canteen and Eliseevsky, a regal shop on Tverskaya Street considered the grandest store in the Soviet Union (which these days sells imported French yoghurt and other modern luxuries).

Visitors can also venture below ground on the Metro Tour.  The latter stops at some of the most ornate stations in Moscow’s beloved Stalinist metro system, such as the mosaic-adorned Komsomolskaya. In an attempt to supply visitors with information beyond the average pocket guide, the tour recounts little-known facts about the metro, such as how many babies have been born on it.

Alexei Sotskov, 30, was inspired to start Moscow Greeter , a local franchise of the international Greeter network, after giving informal tours to friends. “I have a lot of friends in foreign countries, and when they come to Moscow I show them interesting places. So I thought it would be a great idea to start running a tourist service,” he says.

The greeters are mostly students learning English who take visitors to lesser-known sights, such as the former royal estate Kolomenskoye, as well as exhibitions and sporting events. The greeters not only show the tourists around but they also chat to them. “Greeters talk about their lives, their parents, where they’re from in Moscow, and where they study,” says Mr Sotskov. 

“Traditional guides just give people information they read in a book.”

Valentina Lebedeva, a second-year linguistics student, has been a greeter for two months. “When most people come to Moscow, they visit the Kremlin and everything, but they go back and they still don’t really get how people really live here,” she says.

“Greeters offers tourists a good way to get a real impression of Russia, so that you don’t just visit the usual tourist sights.”

Another unconventional tour company, Lovely Russia , also strives to provide a more engaging experience for tourists. “A lot of the tours I saw being run by tour providers were really boring, just buses with large crowds of 60 year-olds,” says the company’s co-founder Anna Shegurova, 25. “There was not a lot for a younger crowd, a more off-the-beaten-path kind of thing.” Lovely Russia offers a variety of $22 tours in English. Locations include metro stations, Constructivist landmarks and a “Moscow as it is” outing that winds through the city’s side streets. At the end of the tour, guides suggest places where participants can enjoy a beer.

Ms Shegurova says the guides try to show visitors “a different side of Russia”.

“It’s a great city with a really long and interesting history… but you wouldn’t really know unless you have someone with you who’s able to share this history and make it interesting,” she says.

For visitors without a guide, getting around Moscow can still be a challenge. Over the past year,  some English-language signs indicating the locations of historical sights have been put up, but metro and street signs remain in Cyrillic.

Mila, volunteer for 'wow local'

“Coming here, it’s very hard to get orientated,” says Irina Tripapina, 25, the organiser of WowLocal . “We decided to compensate for the lack of information in English by establishing a community of volunteers who are willing to help visitors find their way.” After passing language and navigation tests, WowLocal volunteers are given T-shirts and badges emblazoned with the phrase “Ask Me, I’m Local.” 

“Tourists can meet WowLocal at any part of the city and at any time – even at night in Butovo,” says Ms Tripapina, referring to the suburb south of Moscow.

Since the project started in July, Ms Tripapina says it has recruited about 400 volunteers. She wears her badge every day on her way to work, and says she’s frequently stopped by foreigners asking for directions (as well as Russians looking for the metro).

Occasionally, she fields some more unusual requests: “Once, a guy from Britain asked me where to get a bowl of pelmeni,” she says.

WowLocal also brings together local people and tourists through city navigation games and conversation clubs at hostels. “We bring volunteers together with the travellers, so that they can share with each other,” explains Ms Tripapina.

All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

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Cool Course: Students Visit UK to Study Arts Policy and Practice

Thanks to the Tate Modern, the Old Globe, and dozens of galleries and clubs, London draws millions of visitors every year, making it one of the cultural capitals of the world. Building on this reputation, the United Kingdom was one of the first countries to recognize the economic potential of its creative sector. By combining cutting edge enterprises such as gaming, fashion, and design with classical music, dance, and museums, UK leaders leveraged the economic muscle of the arts and positioned them as a contributor to a healthy society.

“Some think of the arts as takers—they are always asking for something. UK leaders flipped it around and said the arts are actually givers, generating a huge amount of product and profit,” says Richard Maloney, clinical associate professor and director of the Performing Arts Administration graduate program at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

That groundbreaking approach has been examined, and replicated, around the world, Maloney says. It serves as an important case study for this graduate course, which combines traditional classroom instruction with a week-long visit to London, where students learn first-hand how the city’s world-class cultural organizations operate.

Sunita Pandya, a former executive of Southbank Centre, talks to students during their visit to the center. Photo by Mia Zhou.

You want to see the buildings, feel the spaces, feel the energy, see the artwork,” Maloney says.

Offered in the spring, The Creative and Cultural Industries in the US and UK discusses the various governmental approaches to funding arts, as well as their influence on a country’s economy, tourism, and diplomacy. It typically attracts students from performing arts administration, visual arts administration, public policy, international education, and media and communications, Maloney says.

Maloney begins by sketching out the significance of the UK’s support of arts and its rejection of older classifications, such as fine vs. popular art, and profit vs. nonprofit structures. This approach redefines the sector as inclusive of all kinds of vibrant creativity.

“Breaking down the barriers makes sense for musicians, dancers, and artists. One day they’re playing in a chamber music concert at a small concert hall sponsored by the government  and the next they are in a recording studio making the soundtrack for another Hollywood blockbuster,” says Maloney, who is also an affiliated faculty member of the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. “They’re getting a paycheck. They don't care if it's nonprofit or for profit.”   

The course covers the elements of the creative sector and their importance to a nation’s economy, tourism, and international diplomacy. Students choose a country and give presentations on how their governments support the arts, providing opportunities to compare and contrast other approaches.

The centerpiece of the course is the week in London during spring break.

“ In situ is where you want to be. You want to see the buildings, feel the spaces, feel the energy, see the artwork,” Maloney says.  

Dr. Sylvia Lahav, a teacher and veteran museum leader, with students at the Tate Modern in London. Photo by Mia Zhou.

Students attend morning lectures and discussions given by arts management professors from UK universities and professionals working in UK creative industries. In the afternoons, they visit museums and arts centers, including the British Museum and the Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest arts center, and meet with leaders who are implementing the policies they previously discussed.

Maloney focuses on the evolution of the UK cultural sector, including the influences of such events as Brexit, which has adversely affected performing artists by restricting their freedom of movement. Other important topics of discussion are the role of artists in creative industries and questions of equity and inclusion.

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Current post-doctoral fellows.

Christy Monet (Brandly), September 2023 – August 2024 Dr. Monet Brandly is a political scientist and Slavicist specializing in intellectual history as viewed from the perspectives of the history of political thought and literary studies. She conducts research and teaches in the fields of political theory, literature, and history, with a focus on Russophone political thought and its engagements with empire, liberalism, and American culture over the last two centuries. She earned her Ph.D. in both Political Science and Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Chicago in 2023. She also holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago, as well as a B.A. in Political Science from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Her current book project on the family novel in Imperial Russia explores the ways in which the development of liberal thought in 19th-century Russia created space for the reimagining of both the form of the family and its role in the political—a reimagining in stark contrast to the eventual removal of the family from the political in Western liberal thought. This research is based, in part, on research undertaken in both Moscow and St. Petersburg in the archives of the Russian State Library and the Pushkin House, respectively. Her doctoral dissertation and current book project have been supported by an Alfa Fellowship, a University of Chicago Harper Dissertation-Year Fellowship, an Institute for Humane Studies Publication Accelerator Grant, and a Princeton University Press Book Proposal Grant. This is her first post-doctoral academic appointment, although she previously worked for the Moscow-based publishing house Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie (NLO) as an editorial assistant and translator during her graduate studies.

Mina Magda, September 2023 – August 2024 Dr. Magda is a scholar of Russian literature, visual art, and performance spanning the long nineteenth century and early Soviet period. Her interdisciplinary research centers politics of racial representation, gendered labor, and colonial culture. Becoming Modern: Negrophilia, Russophilia, and the Making of Modernist Paris, her current book project, examines the aesthetic interplay among modernists of the Russian and Black diasporas in Paris—namely, Josephine Baker and the Ballets Russes—the visual technologies of race-making that framed their careers, and their shared imbrication in the histories of celebrity and coloniality. She demonstrates how the comparison between Baker and the Ballets Russes helps us think of racial formation as a network of political, aesthetic, and commercial negotiations through which we can examine the limits and relational contingencies of racial self-determination, and ask at what cost conceptions of modern subjecthood were afforded. Magda received her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University in 2023 and holds an MA in Russian and Slavic Studies from New York University. Her doctoral dissertation was supported by fellowships at the Houghton Library and Beinecke Library and the MacMillan International Dissertation Research Fellowship.

Anastasiia Vlasenko, September 2022-August 2023 Dr. Vlasenko is a postdoctoral fellow who studies electoral politics and democratization with specialization in politics of Ukraine and Russia. Her monograph project, ‘The Electoral Effects of Decentralization: Evidence from Ukraine’ investigates how decentralization reform affects electoral mobilization and diversity in a weakly institutionalized democracy. Vlasenko is particularly interested in transitional period reforms, propaganda, legislative politics, and forecasting. Her research has been published in the Journal of Politics.  She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Florida State University in 2022, M.A. in Political Science from Florida State University in 2018, M.A. in International Relations from New York University in 2016, and M.Sc. in European Affairs from Lund University in 2013, and B.A. in Political Science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2011. In 2020-2021, she worked at Hertie School in Berlin as a visiting researcher. In 2014-2016, Vlasenko was a Fulbright scholar at New York University. At Florida State University, she taught courses on comparative politics and post-Soviet studies.

Margarita Kuleva, December 2022-November 2023 Dr. Kuleva is a sociologist of culture, interested in exploring social inequalities in the art world and cultural industries in Russia and the UK. Primarily, she works as an ethnographer to discover the ‘behind the scenes’ of cultural institutions to give greater visibility to the invisible workers of culture. Kuleva received her PhD in art sociology from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in collaboration with Bielefeld University in 2019. The dissertation entailed a comparative study of the careers and professional identities of young cultural workers in visual art sectors in Moscow, St Petersburg and London. Based on more than 70 in-depth interviews, it was one of the first systematic studies of post-Soviet creative labour. Some findings from these studies were recently presented in journal publications including  Cultural Studies  (2018) and  International Journal of Cultural Studies  (2019), as well as  European Journal of Cultural Studies  (2022). Her current research project,  The Right to Be Creative , focuses on hidden political struggles at contemporary Russian cultural institutions. Dr. Kuleva previously worked at National Research University Higher School of Economics as an Associate Professor and held the position of Chair of the Department of Design and Contemporary Art in St Petersburg. In 2019-2020, Kuleva was a fellow of the Center for Art, Design and Social Research (Boston, Massachusetts). As a researcher, artist, and curator, she has collaborated with a number of Russian and international cultural institutions, including Manifesta Biennale, Pushkin House in London, Boston Center for the Arts, Garage MoCA, Goethe Institute, Helsinki Art Museum, Street Art Museum, Ural Industrial Biennale and New Holland St. Petersburg.

Past Post-Doctoral Fellows

Nikolay Erofeev, March 2022-May 2022

Dr. Erofeev is an architectural historian whose work focuses on socialist architecture and urban planning. His monograph project, ‘Architecture and housing in the Comecon’ looks at architecture and urbanisation patterns produced by global socialism. Combining in-depth scrutiny of the design of the built environment with an analysis of the everyday processes of subject-making that shaped the socialist project in Mongolia, the project aims to provide a new understanding of the urban and domestic spaces produced in the Global South. Erofeev received his D.Phil (PhD) in History from the University of Oxford in 2020 where he was a Hill Foundation Scholar and his specialist degree (M.A.) in the History of Art from the Moscow State University in 2014. His doctoral project discussed the design and production of prefabricated mass housing in the Soviet Union and argued the architectural story of this understudied ‘bureaucratic modernism’ represents a much more creative and influential development in the history of modern architecture as a whole. Erofeev had academic appointments at Manchester Metropolitan University where he was teaching Master of Architecture dissertations. Erofeev is currently conducting research at the University of Basel as a postdoctoral fellow supported by the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship.

Jennifer Flaherty, September 2020-August 2021

Dr. Flaherty is a postdoctoral fellow specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth- century Russian literature, culture and intellectual history, with current research interests in Hegel’s influence on Russian thought as well as labor theory. Her book project on representations of peasants investigates how the stylistic innovations of nineteenth-century Russian literature express the tensions of modernity that lie at the heart of its agrarian myth. She received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of California at Berkeley in 2019, her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago in 2010, and her B.A. in Philosophy from Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She’s had academic appointments as a visiting assistant professor in the department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the College of William of Mary, and as a lecturer at in the Slavic department at UC Berkeley. Flaherty has conducted research as an American Councils Fellow in Moscow and with Harvard’s Institute for World Literature. Her doctoral dissertation received support from UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for Humanities. She has a forthcoming article in The Russian Review and has published in Tolstoy Studies Journal and PMLA.

Nataliia Laas, September 2022-August 2023 Dr. Laas specializes in political economy, consumer society, gender, the history of the social sciences, and environmental history in the Soviet Union. She currently works on a book manuscript, provisionally titled A Soviet Consumer Republic: Economic Citizenship and the Economy of Waste in the Post-WWII Soviet Union. This project departs from the standard economy-of-shortages narrative and offers a different dimension, an “economy of waste,” to describe Soviet consumption. It argues that after World War II and especially with the onset of Cold War competition with the West, in addition to periodic shortages the Soviet state regularly confronted a new challenge: glutted markets, overproducing factories, and excess commodities. Unlike shortages that were often vindicated by the official Bolshevik ideology as the people’s sacrifice on the road to the country’s industrialization and economic growth, excess and waste were endemic to the malfunctioning of a command economy but far more difficult for authorities to explain and justify. By focusing on the emergence of socialist market research and consumer studies, the book explores how the economy of waste reshaped relationships between the state and its citizens. Laas received her PhD in History from Brandeis University in 2022. Her doctoral dissertation was supported by a Harriman Institute Carnegie Research Grant and a Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship from Brandeis, among others.

Emily Laskin, September 2022-August 2023

Dr. Laskin specializes in the literature of Central Asia, working extensively in Russian and Persian. Her current book project,  No Man’s Land: The Geopoetics of Modern Central Asia , focuses on the literature of the so-called Great Game, the Russo-British rivalry for influence in Central Asia, putting Russian and British imperial writing on Central Asia in dialogue with contemporaneous Persian literature published across the region, from Kabul, to Bukhara, to Istanbul. Laskin’s recent work on the literature of the Great Game appears in  Novel: A Forum on Fiction , and she is an editor of the forthcoming volume  Tulips in Bloom: An Anthology of Modern Central Asian Literature . She received her Ph.D. in 2021 in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and also holds an M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from Columbia University. Her doctoral dissertation was supported by a Mellon/ACLS fellowship and a Berkeley Dean’s Fund grant for archival research in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Vladimir Ryzhkovskyi, November 2020-October 2021

Dr. Ryzhkovskyi studied Russian, Soviet and East European history in Ukraine, Russia, and the US, where he recently earned a PhD from Georgetown University. By foregrounding the link between empire, culture, and knowledge, Ryzhkovskyi’s research probes the place of Russia and the Soviet Union within global history, particularly in relation to forms of Western imperialism and colonialism. His current book project, Soviet Occidentalism: Medieval Studies and the Restructuring of Imperial Knowledge in Twentieth-Century Russia, explores the twentieth-century history of medieval studies in late imperial and Soviet Russia as a model for demonstrating the crucial importance of Soviet appropriation of Western culture and knowledge in the post-revolutionary reconstituting and maintaining the empire following 1917. In addition to pursuing the imperial and postcolonial theme in the history of Soviet modernity, Ryzhkovskyi has published articles and essays on the history of late imperial and Soviet education, the history of late Soviet intelligentsia, and Soviet philosophy. A volume of unpublished writings by the Soviet historian and philosopher Boris Porshnev, co-edited with Artemy Magun, is forthcoming from the European University Press in 2021.

Delgerjargal Uvsh, November 2020-October 2021

Dr. Uvsh received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2020. She conducts research and teaches primarily in the field of comparative politics, with a focus on post-Soviet politics, the political economy of natural-resource dependence, institutional and regime change, and research methods. Using Russia as a critical case, Delgerjargal’s book project, “Reversal of the Resource Curse? Negative Revenue Shocks and Development in Russia and Beyond,” develops a theory of when and how declines in natural-resource revenue (negative revenue shocks) incentivize political elites to support private business activity and reverse the “resource curse.” Delgerjargal expanded her interest in the relationship between natural resources and institutional changes in a forthcoming book chapter, where she explores the short-term effects of negative revenue shocks on political regimes. Another extension, published in Land Use Policy , analyzes novel satellite data on forest-cover change in western Russian regions and shows that the dynamics of forest growth and deforestation have been different in the first versus the second decade of Russia’s transition. You can read more about Delgerjargal’s work at www.delgerjargaluvsh.com .

Sasha de Vogel, September 2021-August 2022

Dr. de Vogel studies the politics of authoritarian regimes and collective action, particularly in Russia and the post-Soviet region. Her research examines when and why autocratic regimes promise concessions to protestors, how these promises affect mobilization and their impact on policies. Her research underscores that reneging, or deliberately failing to implement concessions as promised, is a fundamental strategic dimension of concessions. Her book project focuses on protest campaigns against the Moscow City government about policy-related grievances in the mid-2010s. During this period, more protest campaigns were promised a concession than experienced a detention, yet these concessions rarely resolved protesters’ grievances. Other research interests include comparative politics, authoritarian institutions, repression, authoritarian responsiveness and urban politics. Sasha received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2021, and also holds an MA in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Regional Studies and a BA in Slavic Studies from Columbia University. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation/Harriman Institute, among others.