Connor Doak

Connor Doak is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures who specializes in Russian Modernist poetry, particularly the representation of masculinity, war and revolution in Russian Futurism.  His dissertation, Poetry in the Matador’s Cape: Masculinity in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Verse, argues that the poet’s work relies upon, negotiates and challenges dominant models of masculinity.  He demonstrates how Mayakovsky’s representation of masculinity shifts as Russia experiences war, revolution and transformation from a Tsarist Empire into the Soviet Union of the 1920s.  His work draws on contemporary Western gender and sexuality theory where appropriate, but focuses particularly on cases when Russian literature resists theoretical approaches, and explores how Russian authors might illuminate blind spots in our own theoretical formulations.  While his dissertation focuses on the Modernist period, his research interests span Russian literature from Pushkin to the present day.  Recent publications include a journal article on political appropriations of Pushkin and Byron in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, as well as an article on the representation of ageing and gender in Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s novella Time: Night.