King Hall 106C | 910.962.2440 | oleninaa@uncw.edu
Education
- Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Secondary Field in Film and Visual Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- A.M., Comparative Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- M. Phil., European Literature and Culture, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England
- B.A., English, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Ana Olenina’s teaching and research interests include international cinema of the silent period, the history of Russian and Soviet film, as well as film theory with an emphasis on media archeology and sensory experience. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her dissertation, Psychomotor Aesthetics: Conceptions of Gesture and Affect in Russian and American Modernity, 1910s-1920s. This work traces the ways in which early film directors, actors, and performance theorists used the psychological ideas of their time to conceptualize expressive movement and transference of emotion. Dr. Olenina is a recipient of grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Harvard Davis Center of Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, and the Soros Foundation-Open Society Institute.
Publications
- “Scores of Movement: Lev Kuleshov’s Psychology of Acting” [“Partitury dvizhenia: kak ni stranno, o psikhologii naturshchika u Kuleshova”], Kinovedcheskie zapiski. 97 (2011): 20-50.
- “Mechanics of the Human Brain by Vsevolod Pudovkin,” invited essay for The University of Chicago Motion Pictures in the Human Sciences online resource, eds. Alison Winter and Tom Gunning, forthcoming in 2012.
- “Aleksandra Khokhlova,” commissioned entry for The Columbia University Online Encyclopedia of Women Film Pioneers, ed. Jane Gaines, forthcoming in 2012.
- “Montage Uprising: A Collection of Soviet Silents.” Brochure for the scholarly DVD release Early Landmarks of Soviet Cinema: Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Barnet, Vertov, Shub, Turin, Kalatozov. In collaboration with Maxim Pozdorovkin. Los Angeles: Flicker Alley, 2011. http://www.flickeralley.com/fat_soviet_01.html
Winner of The National Society of Film Critics’ 2011 Award in the nomination “Film Heritage”
http://www.nationalsocietyoffilmcritics.com/?p=44
- A scholarly DVD edition of the film Miss Mend (Russia, 1926), including liner notes “Miss Mend and Soviet Americanism” and a 22 min. audio-visual essay “Miss Mend: A Whirlwind Vision of an Imagined America.” Written and directed in collaboration with Maxim Pozdorovkin. Los Angeles: Flicker Alley, 2009. www.flickeralley.com/fat_missmend_01.html Curatorial project was reviewed by The New York Times and selected for The New York Times 2009 Annual Holiday Gift Guide in the category “Movies for Cinephiles.”
- Interview with Ekaterina Khokhlova, the granddaughter of Lev Kuleshov and co-curator of Kuleshov’s Retrospective at the Bologna Cinema Ritrovato Festival of Archival Cinema, 2008. ARTMargins: Central and Eastern European Visual Culture. October 2008. http://www.artmargins.com/index.php/6-film-a-video/90-lev-kuleshov. Reprinted in French and Russian translation by Kinoglaz: Soviet and Russian Cinema resource portal www.kinoglaz.fr/ekaterina_khokhlova_2008.php
- “Optical Distortions in Eisenstein’s Strike: A Metaphor for New Vision.” Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Film and History League Conference Nov. 8-12, 2006. Ed. Peter Rollins. CD-ROM. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Film and History Society, 2007.
- Review of Polish Postcommunist Cinema: From Pavement Level by Ewa Mazierska. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 28.1 (2008).
- Review of Selected Essays by Vsevolod Pudovkin, ed. Richard Taylor. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 27.2 (2007).
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