Prof Melanie Ilic given time for research and writing this term

  14th September 2021

I have been lucky enough to be granted a bit of time during semester 1 2021/22 via our teaching release buy out scheme to progress my research and writing towards a monograph that focuses on the role of women in the Soviet dissident movements. This is a subject that has long been on my mind, and which was advanced when I was lucky enough to be able to interview Lyudmila Alekseeva (founder member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group) when I was in Moscow during the very hot summer of 2011. The account of her life emerging from the interview was published in Life Stories of Soviet Women: the Interwar Generation (Routledge, 2013).

During this period, I will be continuing as normal with supervision of undergraduate dissertations and postgraduate students, as well as Personal Tutor to my various tutor groups. However, for our undergraduate students taking the Russian and Soviet history modules in semester 1 this academic year (HM4405 and HM5406) this means that you will have a new Module Tutor: Dr Hannah Parker. Hannah is an expert in the early Soviet period, so you will be in very capable hands. I was very pleased to be asked to be one of the examiners for her PhD thesis on ‘Voices of the New Soviet Woman: Gender, Emancipation and Agency in Letters to the Soviet State, 1924-1941’ in 2018. She will also teach HM5001 Research & Inquiry alongside Christian. I’m sure all our students will help Hannah feel very welcome. More to follow from Hannah on this blog soon.