Photo credit: Wemmy Ogunyankin
My name is Irina Sadovina.
The stress in my surname falls on the second syllable.
Here are some things I've done.
WRITING
Overidentification on Substack.
From Pampalche, novel-in-progress. Prototype 6. 2024. Read a sample. Get the anthology here
The Museum of Innocence. Stigmata. Poems. The Sheffield Review, May 2024
"Poetry as Field Recording". Collaboration with Anna Kime, Ceri Nicholls, Nastassja Simensky and Ioannis Andronikidis. Leaky Transmissions #2. Arts Catalyst. 2022
“How Russia’s Indigenous Artists Reforged Soviet Ballet to Revive Provincial Theatre". Calvert. 2020
EDITING
Environmental Futures: An International Literary Anthology, edited by Caren Irr et al. May 2024. Get it here
TRANSLATION
from Russian
Anna Nerkagi, White Moss (1996).
Read one excerpt in Meniscus Literary Journal, Volume 11 Issue 2, 2023
Read another excerpt in the Emerging Literary Translators Anthology, UK's National Centre for Writing, 2022
Denis Osokin, “Odocha. Olika. Oshalche. Oshanyak.” From Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari. In Raffaele Petralla, Mari El: A Pagan Beauty, Voglino Editrice, 2021
Denis Osokin, "yud orol: the night watch." ellipse 90: Retours/Returns, 109-115, 2020
Svetlana Kogan-Rabinovich. "In the Inferno: The Dead Loop Concentration Camp.” Before All Memory is Lost, ed. by Myrna Goldberg. Toronto: Azrieli Foundation, 455-477, 2017
from Mari
Making a Dugout Boat. Documentary short by Alyona Ivanova, GTRK Mari El. Winner of the Special Prize at the 2019 Finno-Ugric Film Festival (FUFF), Estonia, 2019
Shymaksh: Traditional Mari Women’s Headdress. Museum catalogue by Marina Khabaleva. Yoshkar-Ola, Russia: Sernur Museum, 2017
RESEARCH
Ethnography of Alternative Spirituality
“Humour and Resistance in Russia’s Ecological Utopia (A Look at the Anastasia Movement),” in Contesting Authority: Vernacular Knowledge and Alternative Beliefs, ed. by Ülo Valk and Marion Bowman. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. October 2022
“Vedic Femininity as a Post-Soviet Laboratory of Gender and Labor.” New Age in Russia Blog, 2021
“Legitimating New Religiosity in Contemporary Russia: ‘Vedic Wisdom’ Under Fire.” Nova Religio 24.3 (2021): 6-35
“The New Age Paradox: Spiritual Consumerism and Traditional Authority at the Child of Nature Festival in Russia.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 32.1 (2017): 83-103. Read the abstract
“In Search of Vedic Wisdom: Power and Legitimation of Spiritual Truth in Contemporary Russia.” PhD in Literature and Cultural Research (Folklore), University of Tartu, 2020. Read the introduction
Cultural Theory & Sexual Violence
“The Nonsovereign Subject and Sexual Violence in Contemporary North American and Russian Culture.” PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, 2018. Read the thesis
Indigenous Languages
“Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of the Russian Federation.” Co-written with Dylan Charter, Tetyana Dzyadevych, Anna Gomboeva, Lenore Grenoble, Jessica Kantarovich, Hilah Kohen, and Rossina Soyan. Russian Language Journal, 71.3 (2021): 73-99.
TEACHING
I am the Co-ordinator of Slavonic Languages and University Teacher of Russian at University of Sheffield's Modern Languages Teaching Centre. I've previously taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Missouri, Volga State University of Technology, and the University of Tyumen.
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
Writing
2024 - Prototype Development Programme, Prototype Publishing & New Writing North
Translation
2021 - Australasian Association of Writing Programs Translation Prize
2021-2022 - National Centre for Writing Emerging Translator Mentorship
2011 - Shortlisted for the Academia Rossica Young Translator’s Award
Scholarship
2021 - Helen Crovetto Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements with Ties to South Asia
2017-2018 - Chancellor Jackman Graduate Fellow in the Humanities, Jackman Humanities Institute
2014-2016 - Junior Fellow at Massey College
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