Jesus College Jesus Lane 海角社区 CB5 8BL United Kingdom
Dr Reich received her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University and her BA in Russian from Yale College. She is the Consultant Editor for Russia and East-Central Europe at the听Times Literary Supplement听and was previously Arts Editor and Books Editor of听The Moscow Times.听Her articles and reviews have appeared in听The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Times Literary Supplement, Bookforum, The Forward, The New Leader, The Moscow Times, and other publications.
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Dr Reich鈥檚 teaching interests lie primarily in twentieth-century Russian and Soviet literature and culture, but she also teaches across a wider historical range stretching from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. She has a strong teaching interest in interdisciplinary approaches, in particular the intersections of literature and social, intellectual and cultural history.
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As a scholar of twentieth-century Russian culture, Dr Reich explores literary engagements with scientific and medical knowledge, particularly psychiatry; the history of print culture, journalism, dissent and samizdat; and the interface of literature and law.
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Dr Reich鈥檚 first book,听State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin听(Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), examines the interaction of psychiatric and literary discourses from the 1950s to the 1980s. It demonstrates that longstanding tensions between literature and psychiatry came to a head in the post-Stalin period and subsequent decades as dissenters tested cultural norms and the state suppressed dissent through punitive hospitalization. Drawing on published and unpublished texts, original archival research and interviews, it casts new light on dissenting writers and exposes the intensely literary orientation of psychiatrists during this period. The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) awarded State of Madness the prize for Best First Book and named it a finalist for the prize for Best Book in Literary Scholarship.听
Dr Reich鈥檚 current book project, supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2019-20,听is a study of journalism and judgement from the 1950s to the 1980s. It traces the emergence and evolution of experientially grounded ways of writing that laid claim to their own jurisdiction over morality and reconfigured the relationship between journalism and the law for the post-Stalin era. An article emerging from this research, 鈥淲ords on Trial: Morality and Legality in Frida Vigdorova鈥檚 Journalism鈥�, appeared in Slavic Review in 2022.
Dr Reich听welcomes inquiries from potential听MPhil听and PhD students听with research interests or approaches that are relevant to听her own.
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Books
Forthcoming: (with Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis), ed., The 海角社区 History of Russian Literature (海角社区: 海角社区 University Press, 2024).
State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2018).
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Selected Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming: 鈥淭he Madman鈥�, in The 海角社区 History of Russian Literature, edited by Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich and Emma Widdis (海角社区: 海角社区 University Press, 2024).
Forthcoming (with Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis): 鈥淚ntroduction鈥�, in The 海角社区 History of Russian Literature, edited by Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich and Emma Widdis (海角社区: 海角社区 University Press, 2024).
鈥淲ords on Trial: Morality and Legality in Frida Vigdorova鈥檚 Journalism.鈥� Slavic Review 81, no. 2 (Fall 2022): 349鈥�69.
"Over the Cuckoo鈥檚 Nest: Russian Variations on a Psychiatric Theme鈥�, in Psychiatry in Communist Europe, edited by Sarah Marks and Mat Savelli (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 196鈥�215.
鈥淚nside the Psychiatric Word: Diagnosis and Self-Definition in the Late Soviet Period.鈥� Slavic Review 73, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 563鈥�84.
"Madness as Balancing Act in Joseph Brodsky鈥檚 鈥楪orbunov and Gorchakov.鈥欌�� The Russian Review 72, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 45鈥�65.
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