Elena K. Murenina
Russian Studies Advisor
252-328-5521 (phone)
252-328-6233 (fax)
mureninae@ecu.edu
Bate 3303 (office)
Dept. Foreign Languages & Literatures
East Carolina University Mailstop #556
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
Education
- M.A. Philology, Saratov State University, (Saratov, Russia)
- Ph.D. Philology, Urals State University (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- Specialization: Russian Literature & Literary Criticism
Areas of Interest
- Literary Criticism & Cultural Studies
- 19th Century Russian Literary & Intellectual History
- 20th Century Russian Émigré Art, Criticism, and Philosophy
- Experience and Expression in Exile
- Film and Theater Adaptation
- Auteur Cinema in Russia and Europe
- Reading and Film Audiences
- Media, Culture, and Society
- Ecocriticism/Environmental Humanities
- Digital Humanities
Dr. Murenina is a native of Russia. She joined our Department in the Fall 2001 as ECU Thomas W. Rivers Distinguished Chair in International Studies, to help the College of Arts and Science promote the development of Russian Studies in East Carolina. Since that time, the Russian Studies section has been solidified by a significant number of new courses in Russian literature, culture and film and by the establishment of a Russian Studies Interdisciplinary Program (THCAS).
Before coming to the United States, Dr. Murenina was an Associate Professor at the Department of Literary Criticism at Saratov State University, one of the oldest classical universities in Russia. In Saratov, for 14 years she taught a broad range of courses on the history and theory of Russian literature, literary criticism and journalism of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, seminars on literary biography, the writings of Gogol and Dostoevsky. For several years, she was a Vice-Dean of the College of Philology which consists of 9 Literary Studies and Linguistics Departments, and also the Director of the Graduate Journalism Program. She has published more than 40 articles and papers on various theoretical and historical aspects of Russian literary and cultural life in the 19th-21st centuries, diverse problems of literary criticism and media, cross-cultural theaterical and film adaptation, and the reception of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov in Russia and the West. Her academic and teaching experience has been reflected in her textbook on 18th-19th Century Russian Literature (1996), specially designed for students majoring in English, German and French. Her most recent book (2021) is on Dostoevsky in the modern theatre and media (co-authored). The results of her research have been delivered at more than 60 international conferences through the former Soviet Union, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Dr. Murenina’s current monograph project “Русская классика на сцене и на экране: Проблемы адаптации, креативности и рецепции” (Russian Classics on Stage and Screen: The Problems of Adaptation, Creativity and Reception) analyzes the contemporary film and theater adaptations of the canonical works of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov.
Dr. Murenina’s passion for Russian literature grew out of her love for Russian poetry. By the age of sixteen, her poems had been published in Moscow periodicals. It is her hope that future ECU students will be able to appreciate Russian poetry in its original language, fascinated by its depth and beauty.
Courses Taught
- HNRS 4101, 4102 Honors Thesis
- MULT 4999, 3500 Multidisciplinary Research in Russian Studies (Thesis)
- HNRS 3101, 3102 Honors Independent Study (Undergraduate Research)
- HNRS 2116 Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar in Humanities: Russian and Soviet Film (FC:HU)
- HNRS 2116 Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar in Humanities: Making a New Vision: Early Soviet Cinema between Myth & Reality (1920s-1950s)
- HNRS 2116 Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar in Humanities: At the Boundaries of “the Permissible”: Art, Politics, and Entertainment in Russian and American Contexts (1950s-1990s)
- HNRS 2116 Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar in Humanities: Russian 20th Century Émigré Culture (Poetry, Music, Ballet, Art, Design & Fashion)
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Studies: The Concept of ‘Insanity’ in Russian Literature and Culture
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Studies: Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel and Intellectual Thought
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Studies: Dostoevsky’s Idiot and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Studies: Dostoevsky and Nabokov
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Studies: Russian Auteur Cinema: Tarkovsky
- RUSI 4000 Senior Seminar in Russian Strudies: Chekhov’s Drama on Page, Stage & Screen
- RUSI 3933 Directed Readings in Russian Studies (Undergraduate Research)
- RUSI 3011, 3012 Field Study in Russia
- RUSI 2001 Introduction to Russian Studies: Humanities (FC:HU)
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: The Golden Age Readings in Russian Literature (fourth year Russian)
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: Advanced Russian Grammar (fourth year Russian)
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: Advanced Russian Conversation & Composition through Film
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: Introduction to Russian Poetry and Versification
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: Russian Short Story in Translation (XX cent.)
- RUSS 3700 Special Topics: Russian Fairy Tales
- RUSS 3230 Russian and Soviet Film (FC:HU)
- RUSS 3221 Twentieth Century Russian Literature in Translation (FC:HU)
- RUSS 3220 Nineteenth Century Russian Literature in Translation (FC:HU)
- RUSS 2700 Special Topics: Intermediate Russian Conversation
- RUSS 2700 Special Topics: Intermediate Russian Composition & Conversation through Film
- RUSS 2700 Special Topics: Russian Language and Media (third year Russian)
- RUSS 2700 Special Topics: Russian Short Story in Translation (XIX cent.)
- RUSS 2700 Special Topics: Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse
- RUSS 2221 Twentieth Century Russian Novel in Translation
- RUSS 2220 Nineteenth Century Russian Novel in Translation
- RUSS 2120 Introduction to Russian Culture (FC:HU)
- RUSS 1003-1004 Intermediate Russian Language
- RUSS 1001-1002 Basic Russian Language