Anastassiya Andrianova is a Professor of English. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), specializing in British literature and philosophy of the long 19th century. Dr. Andrianova is committed to introducing ecocriticism, animal studies, and disability studies to discussions of Romantic, realist, and Modernist literatures, particularly in Ukranian and Russian studies where these theoretical concerns are underrepresented. She has published on animal studies, zoopedagogy, ecospirituality, Ukrainian drama, British Victorian pedagogy, postcolonial literature, and children’s literature.

What made you want to work in English Studies? 

I came to English Studies as an English major with a background in comparative literature. As a bilingual speaker of Ukrainian and Russian, who has also studied French and Latin and dabbled in some Italian and German, I appreciate how roomy, linguistically inclusive, and culturally diverse the field of English Studies is. Although I primarily teach British and anglophone world literature and critical theory, I research and publish on children’s and adult literature from around the globe, contemporary Ukrainian popular music and culture, and environmental texts from various disciplines, time periods, and genres—all “rooms” in the English Studies “home.”

What do you like about working with students?

I like introducing students to new ideas and new texts, and especially those rare a-ha moments when something truly resonates with them. But I also like learning from my students and having them introduce me to ideas and texts with which I am not familiar.

Three book recommendations

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory

Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

Recent publications

“‘Friends, Not Food’: Depictions of Animals in Vegan Picturebooks.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, Fall 2024, pp. 236-59.

“Not Your Ordinary Drone: Odes to the Bayraktar in the Russia-Ukraine War.” Popular Music, vol. 42, no. 2, 2024 [published online ahead of print], pp. 1-21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143024000047

“To Read or Not to Eat: Anthropomorphism in Children’s Books.” Society & Animals, vol.31, pp. 847-865, 2023 [online 2021]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-bja10045

“A Dino Fix: Linus the Vegetarian T. Rex as a Picturebook for the Anthropocene.” Humanimalia, vol. 14, no. 1, Fall 2023, pp. 249-280. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.13618

“Mavka as Willow: An Ecofeminist Analysis of Lesja Ukrainka’s Forest Song.” Studi Slavistici, vol. 18 (special volume), no. 2, 2022, pp.224-240.

Academia.edu Site 

Courses Taught

English Studies Capstone Experience

British Literature Survey II

World Literature Survey

Literature and the Environment

Being Human: The Monster Within

Multicultural Writers

Introduction to Literary Studies

Literary Analysis (undergraduate) and Critical Theory (graduate)

Romantic Literature: Romantic Autobiography (undergraduate and graduate)

Topics in British Literature: Literature and Disability (undergraduate and graduate)

Topics in British Literature: Global Postcolonialisms (undergraduate and graduate)

Topics in British Literature: Animals in the British Isles (undergraduate and graduate)

Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences

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