USC.edu

Marcus Levitt

Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Email levitt@usc.edu

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), Russian Academy of Sciences, Visiting Researcher, 2011-2012

Biography

Professor Emeritus Marcus Levitt grew up in Brooklyn.  He attended Brooklyn Friends School, Haverford College and Columbia University, where he got his PhD in Russian.  Before coming to USC, where he worked for 32 years, he taught in Columbia’s Literature-Humanities Program and served for a year as Visiting Professor at Duke University.  He has spent several years living and doing research in Russia and the former Soviet Union, where his works appear regularly.  One main thrust of his scholarly writing has been to better understand the genesis of a “modern” west-European style literature in Russia, and he has written on a broad spectrum of Russian writers from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries.  His first book, Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 (1989), considered the cultural context for Alexander Pushkin’s elevation of to the rank of Russian “national poet.”  His most recent, prize-winning monograph, The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia (2011), examines early modern Russia’s demand to be seen and its paradoxical lack of visibility in the later tradition.  In between these books he co-edited path-breaking collections on sex and violence (Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture [1999] and Times of Trouble: Violence in Russian Literature and Culture [2007]), as well as a volume in the series Dictionary of Literary Biography on Early Modern Russian Writers (vol. 150, 1995).  He also co-edited a volume of articles entitled: Demonocracy: The Satirical Journals of the Russian Revolution 1905  with Oleg Minin (a special issue of the journal Experiment, vol.19 (2013), Brill Publishing.  In 2023 he was awarded the prize for “Outstanding Contribution to Scholarship” from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages (AATSEEL).

 Prof. Levitt has also translated several important works of contemporary Russian scholarship into English, including those by Victor Zhivov, Boris Uspensky, and Andrei Zorin.  Among his other scholarly activities he led an expedition of USC undergraduates to Trans-Baikal, Siberia, to record music of the “Semeiskie” Old Believers; and he organized USC’s Russian Satirical Journals Project that digitized the university’s major collection of periodicals from the time of the Russian Revolution of 1905.  He is presently taking part in a collaborative effort with several Russian scholars to create a critical edition of the works of Alexander Sumarokov, a major but largely forgotten eighteenth-century Russian literary luminary.  He has been working on Sumarokov’s large-scale works for the court, including the first ballet and opera librettos in Russian.  He has taught and lectured around the country, in Russia and in Europe.

 

Education

  • Ph.D. Russian Literature, Columbia University, 5/1984
  • M.A. Russian Literature, Columbia University, 5/1982
  • Certificate Russian Studies, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, 5/1979
  • B.A. Russian, History, Haverford College, 5/1976

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Professor, University of Southern California, 05/01/2012 –
    • Associate Professor, University of Southern California, 05/01/1991 – 05/01/2012
    • Assistant Professor, University of Southern California, 09/01/1985 – 05/01/1991

    Visiting and Temporary Appointments

    • Visiting Professor, University of California, Los Angeles,
    • Visiting Assistant Professor, Duke University, 1984-1985

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Dr. Levitt is known for both his research on eighteenth-century Russian culture and on Pushkin. Broadly speaking, his work has focused on the problems of establishing a “modern” western European style literature in Russia. His first book, “Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880,” published by Cornell University Press in 1989, earned him USC’s Phi Kappa Phi All-University Honor Society Faculty Recognition Award, and has been translated into Russian and published in Russia. Among his recent publications on Pushkin is the chapter on “Eugene Onegin” in the “Cambridge Companion to Pushkin,” edited by A. Kahn (2006).

    Prof. Levitt has written extensively on eighteenth-century Russian literature. A collection of his articles recently appeared as “Early Modern Russian Letters: Texts and Contexts”(2009), including several studies of the writer Alexander Sumarokov, as well as on such other eighteenth-century figures as Lomonosov, Radishchev, Princess Dashkova, Princess Urusova, and Catherine the Great.

    Dr. Levitt edited and contributed to “Early Modern Russian Writers, Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” volume 150 in the series “The Dictionary of Literary Biography”(1995). This fundamental reference work features articles by leading international experts, and breaks new ground both in re-defining the period–as “early modern”–and in expanding the canon to include ecclesiastical and women writers. He also translated V. M. Zhivov’s path-breaking study “Language and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia” (2009).

    Dr. Levitt has edited two collections of articles – one on sex and one on violence. The first, which he edited together with Dr. Andrei Toporkov of the Institute of World Literature in Moscow, resulted from an international conference Dr. Levitt organized at USC on May 22-24, 1998. This bi-lingual collection, “Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture,” includes studies on philosophy, history, folklore, literature, art, law and gender studies, by some of the most interesting current scholars. More recently, he co-edited “Times of Trouble: Violence in Russian Literature and Culture” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), with Tatyana Novikova of the University of Nebraska.

    Dr. Levitt has also organized USC’s Russian Satirical Journals Project in collaboration with the USC Libraries and the College. Its goal is to digitalize USC’s collection of Russian Satirical Journals from the Revolution of 1905 with an extensive searchable database. The URL is http://dotsx2.usc.edu:3006/rsj/home. USC’s collection contains c.150 Russian-language titles in c. 600 issues with over 6,500 pages of text, and the bi-lingual site will make them available in high quality digital images, with extensive metadata on the journals, their producers, and the historical and cultural contexts.

  • USC Funding

    • College Initiative on Interdisciplinary Projects, Programs and Centers. Slavic Digital Research Center: This grant supported the Russian Satirical Journals Project, $25000, 2007-2008

  • Conference Presentations

    • “The Satire of the Satirical Journals of 1905” , ASEEES National ConventionTalk/Oral Presentation, Invited, Phuladelphia, 11/20/2015
    • “On Catherine’s Greatness” , The Enlightened Gaze: Gender, Power, and Visual Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia”Talk/Oral Presentation, Georgia Museum of Art and Lamar Dodd School of Art, Invited, The University of Georgia at Athens, 11/01/2013
    • “O pol’ze mifologii (na materiale sumarokovskih oper)” [On the Use of Mythology: Concerning Sumarokov’s Operas].” , Mezhdunarodnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia pamiati Il’i Zaharovicha Sermana (1913-2010), Talk/Oral Presentation, Institut russkoi literatury (Pushkinskii dom) RAN , Invited, St. Petersburg, Russia, 09/20/2013 – 09/22/2013
    • “Derzhavin’s ‘Zapiski’ and Classicist Life Writing.” , AAASS National ConventionTalk/Oral Presentation, Boston, 11/15/2009
    • “Derzhavin and Dashkova as Writers and Cultural Figures” , AAASS National ConventionTalk/Oral Presentation, Philadelphia, 11/20/2008
    • “History ex nihilo: Prolegomenon to an Analysis of Theater’s Role in Early Modern Russian Identity Formation” , AAASS National Convention, Nov. 15, 2007Talk/Oral Presentation, New Orleans, 11/16/2007
    • Discussant, panel on Sex and the Discourses of Power in Imperial Russia , AAASS National Convention, Nov. 16, 2007.Discussant, Invited, New Orleans, 11/16/2007
    • “Between Science and Poetry: ‘Feoptiia,’ V. K. Trediakovsky’s Visual Theodicy” , Twelfth International Congress on the EnlightenmentTalk/Oral Presentation, ISECS, Invited, Montpellier, France, 07/10/2007
    • “The Weight of Stone in Dostoevsky’s ‘Besy'” , AATSEEL National ConventionTalk/Oral Presentation, AATSEEL, Philadelphia, 12/30/2006
    • Discussant, panel on Russian Theater Before Pushkin , AAASS National ConventionDiscussant, Invited, Washington, D.C., 11/17/2006
    • “E. S. Urusova’s Polion (1774): The Polemic with Rousseau and the Problem of its Status as a Work of ‘Woman’s Literature” , AAASS National ConventionTalk/Oral Presentation, AAASS, Washington, D.C., 11/06/2006
    • “The Methodological Advantages of Publishing Eighteenth-Century Russian Texts Digitally” , 2006 Fisher Forum: Book Arts, Culture and Media in Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia: From Print toTalk/Oral Presentation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Invited, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 06/18/2006
    • Discussant, panel on Russian Merchant Readership in the Eighteenth-Century , Seminar on “Prostranstvo knigi”: The Space of the Book in the Imperial Russian Social ImaginationDiscussant, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Invited, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 06/16/2006

  • Book

    • Levitt, Marcus C (Ed.). (2018). A/Z: Essays in Honor of Alexander Zholkovsky. Edited by Marcuis C.Levitt, Dennis Ioffe, Joe Peschio, and Igor Pilschikov. Boston. MA: Academic Studies Press.
    • Levitt, Marcus C (Ed.). (2017). Aleksandr Sumarokov, Tsefal i Prokris, Al’tsesta. Moscow: Agraf.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2015). “Vizual’naia dominanta v russkoi kul’ture XVIII veka” [The Visual Dominant in Russian Culture of the 18th. Century]. (A. Glebovskaia (translator), Ed.). Moscow: Pushkinskii Dom, NLO.
    • Levitt, Marcus C (Ed.). (2015). “A Century Mad and Wise”: Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment, Papers from the IX International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Leuven 2014. Edited by Marcus C. Levitt,Emmanuel Waegemans, Hans van Koningsbrugge, and Mikhail Ljustrov. Groenigen: Netherlands Russian Centre.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2014). Andrei Zorin, “By Fables Alone: Literature and State Ideology in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Russia”. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
    • Levitt, Marcus C. (Ed.). (2012). “Tsar and God” and Other Essays by B. A. Uspenskij and V. M. Zhivov. Boston, Mass.: Academic Studies Press.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2011). The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia. DeKalb, ILL: Northern Illinois University Press.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2009). Early Modern Russian Letters: Texts and Contexts. Selected Essays. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
    • Zhivov, V. M., Levitt, M. C. (2009). Language and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
    • Levitt, M. C., Novikov, T. (2007). Times of Trouble: Violence in Russian Literature and Culture. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
    • Levitt, M. C., Toporkov, A. (1999). Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture / Eros i pornografiia v russkoi kul’ture. Ladomir.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1994). Literatura i politika: Pushkinskii prazdnik 1880 goda. St. Petersburg: Literatura i politika: Pushkinskii prazdnik 1880 goda (Translation)/Akademicheskii proekt.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1989). Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Book Chapters

    • Levitt, M. C. (2023). “John Bowlt and the Russian Satirical Journals Project”. A Blue Brick / Sinii kirpich, Festschrift in Honor of John E. Bowlt pp. 446-54. Frankfurt Main: Esterum.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2016). “Pervaia russkaia opera, “Tsefal i Prokris” A. P. Sumarokova, i problema allegorizma” [The First Russian Opera, Sumarokov’s ‘Tsefal I Procris,’ and the Problem of Allegory],. “A Century Mad and Wise”: Russia in the Age of the pp. 37-52. Netherlands Russian Centre.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2014). “Ody Lomonosova v bogoslovskom kontekste” (Lomonosov’s Odes in a Theological Context). Pamiat’ literaturnogo tvorchestva [Memory in Liter pp. 500-518. Moscow: RAN, Institut mirovoi literatury im. Gor’kogo.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). “Stikhotvorenie Derzhavina o kniagine Dashkovoi: K probleme ikh vzaimootnoshenii” [Derzhavin’s Poem about ProncessPrincess Dashkova: On the Problem of their Mutual Relationship]. pp. 52-62. Moscow – St. Petersburg: Aoinidy: Sbornik statei v chest’ Natal’i Dmitrievny Kochetkovoi / Al’ians-Arkheo.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). “‘Women’s wiles’ in Mikhail Chulkov’s ‘The Comely cook'”. Seeing Satire (Vol. 2013: 2) pp. 247-265. Oxford, England: SCEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century). Full-text
    • Levitt, M. C. (2012). “Russian Literature: Paths Not Taken”. From Medieval Russian Culture to Modernism (Vol. Russian Culture in Europe, vol. 8.) pp. pp. 23-37. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2012). “‘Metamorfozy’ Ovidii v russkoi literature XVIII veka – Pro et Contra” [“Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Eighteenth-century Russian Literature: Pro and Contra”]. Literarum Fructus: Sbornik statei pp. 142-153. St. Petersburg: Al’ians-Arkheo.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2009). “Liubovnyia elegii i Torzhestvennyia ody Sumarokova skvoz’ prizmu istorii poeticheskogo sbornika,” in A. P. Sumarokov, Liubovnye elegii, Torzchestvennye ody: Reprintnoe vosproizvedenie sbornikov 1774 goda. Prilozhenie: Redaktsii i varianty. Dopolneniia. Kommentarii. Stat’i, ed. Ronald Vroon. pp. 469-497. Moscow: OGI.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2006). Virtue Must Advertise: Dashkova’s ‘Mon histoire’ and the Problem of Self-Representation. 1 (Vol. 96) pp. 39-56. Philadelphia: The Princess and the Patriot: Ekaterina Dashkova, Benjamin Franklin, and the Age of Enlightenment / Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2006). Evgenii Onegin. pp. p. 41-56.. Cambridge, UK: The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin/Cambridge University Press.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2000). The Dance of Love in Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ (The ‘Maiden’s Song’). (Vol. Slavic Studies) pp. Vol. 4.. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: Collected Essays in Honor of the Bicentennial of Alexander S. Pushkin’s Birth/The Edwin Mellen Press.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). Barkoviana and Russian Classicism. pp. p. 219-36.. Moscow: Eros i pornografiia v russkoi kul’ture / Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture/Ladomir.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). Pushkin and the Public Sphere. pp. p. 139-45.. London: Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia’s Best-Loved Writer,/Hazar.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). ‘Catherine the Great,’ and translation, ‘Selections from “Odds and Ends”‘. pp. p. 3-10 and 10-27.. New York: Russian Women Writers/Garland.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1995). ‘Introduction’ and ‘Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov’. pp. p. ix-xviii and 370-381.. http://www.galenet.com/: Early Modern Russian Writers, Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 150./Bruccoli Clark Layman, Gale Research, Inc..
    • Levitt, M. C. (1994). K istorii teksta ‘Dvukh epistol’ A. P. Sumarokova [Toward the Textual History of Sumarokov’s ‘Two Epistles’]. (Vol. Studiorum Slavicorum Monumenta) pp. 6. St. Petersburg, Russia: Marginalii russkikh pisatelei XVIII veka [Marginalia of 18th Century Russian Writers]/Dmitri Bulanin.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1992). Pushkin in 1899. (Vol. California Slavic Studies.) pp. p. 183-203.. Cultural Mythologies of Russian Modernism: From the Golden Age to the Silver Age/University of California, Berkeley.

    Book Review

    • Levitt, M. C. (2016). Book Review, Asen Kirin, ed. “Exuberance of Meaning: The Art Patronage of Catherine the Great” a Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2013. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 640-42.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2015). Featured review: Luba Golburt, “The First Epoch”. Slavic Review. pp. 354-57..
    • Levitt, M. C. (2015). Zubov, Platon. “The Astrologer of Karabagh”. The Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 137-38.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2014). Steven A. Usitalo, “The Invention of Mikhail Lomonosov: A Russian National Myth”. The Slavic and East European Journal / AATSEEL. pp. 333-335.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). Inna Naroditskaya, “Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage.”. Slavic Review. pp. 658-660.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). Book review, of Inna Naroditskaya, “Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from Stage to Stage.”. Slavic Review. pp. 658-660.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). Catherine A. Schuler, “Theatre & Identity in Imperial Russia”. Canadian-American Slavic Studies. pp. 90-91.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2012). Book review, of Kevin M. F. Platt, “Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths.”. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 488-489.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2012). Book review of Tatiana Smoliarova, “Zrimaia lirika: Derzhavin”. Russian Review. pp. pp. 316-317.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2009). A. Worzonoff-Dashkoff. “Dashkova: A Life of Influence and Exile”. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 325-326.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2008). Gary Marker, “Imperial Saint: The Cult of St. Catherine and the Dawn of Female Rule in Russia”. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 484-485.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2005). ‘Memoirs of Catherine the Great,’ trans. Mark Cruse and Hilde Hoogenboom. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 706-707.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2005). E. Wirtschafter, ‘The Play of Ideas in Russian Enlightenment Theater’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 515-516.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2002). Thomas Newlin, ‘The Voice in the Garden: Andrei Bolotov and the Anxieties of Russian Pastoral, 1738-1833’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 777-779.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2002). Robert Whittaker, ‘Russia’s Last Romantic, Apollon Grigor’ev’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 166-167.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2002). Anthony Cross, ‘Peter the Great Through British Eyes: Perceptions and Representations of the Tsar Since 1698’ and ‘Catherine the Great and the British: A Pot-Pourri of Essays’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 418-420.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2000). Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 124-125.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2000). Anthony Cross. By the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Canadian-American Slavic Studies/University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh. pp. 100-101.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). J. Bortnes and I. Lunde, ‘Cultural Discontinuity and Reconstruction: The Byzanto-Slav Heritage and the Creation of a Russian National Literature in the Nineteenth Century’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 221-222.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). David Gasperetti, ‘The Rise of the Russian Novel’. Russian Review/Blackwell. pp. 133-134.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1997). Henry Buchanan, ‘Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: An Aesthetic Interpretation’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 692-694.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1996). Wayne Dowler, An Unnecessary Man: The Life of Apollon Grigor’ev. Russian Review/Blackwell. pp. 701-702.
    • Levitt, M. C., Polinsky, M. (1995). Ando Atsushi, Urai Yasuo and Mochizuki Tetsuo, eds. ‘A Concordance to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 619-620.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1994). Peter France, ‘Politeness and Its Discontents: Problems in French Classical Culture’. Eighteenth-Century Studies/Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 509-512.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1991). Stephen Lessing Baehr, ‘The Paradise Myth in Eighteenth-Century Russia’. Canadian Slavonic Papers/Canadian Association of Slavists. pp. 382-383.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1991). Gitta Hammarberg, ‘From the Idyll to the Novel: Karamzin’s Sentimentalist Prose’. Canadian Slavonic Papers/Canadian Association of Slavists. pp. 388-389.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1988). Charles A. Moser, ed. ‘The Russian Short Story’. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 464-464.

    Journal Article

    • Levitt, M. C. (2022). Article, “Take No Prisoners Caricature: Nikolai Remizov and the Revolution of 1905”. Experiment / Brill Publishers. Vol. 28
    • Levitt, M. C. (2019). “Vopros o masonstve A. P. Sumarokova i o iakoby masonskom kharaktere ego zhurnala “Truoliubivaia pchela”. “Vopros o masonstve A. P. Sumarokova i o iakoby masonskom kharaktere ego zhurnala “Truoliubivaia pchela.” Literaturnaia kul’tura Rossii XVIII veka / Sankt-Peterburgskii gos. universitetSt. Vol. 8, pp. 228-238.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). “Ot lubka k romanu: ‘Prigozhaia povarikha’ Chulkov’” [From Lubok to Novel: Chulkov’s Comely Cook],. Russkaia literatura. (4), pp. 146-159.
    • Levitt, M. C., Minin, O. (2013). “The Satirical Journals of the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907: A Brief Introduction.”. Experiment / Brill. Vol. 19, pp. 17-23.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2013). Review article, “Personality and Place in Russian Culture – or Not.” Review of Simon Dixon, ed., “Personality and Place in Russian Culture: Essays in Memory of Lindsey Hughes.”. Kritika. Vol. 14 (3), pp. 650-658.
    • Levitt, M. C., Demin, A. A. (2012). Review article, “Siuzhet vysshego poriadka” [Subject of a Higher Order], of A. S. Korndorf, “Dvortsy khimery, Illiuzornaia arkhitektura i politicheskie alliuzii pridvornoi stseny.”. Sovremennaia dramaturgiia. (4 (Oct.-Nov.)), pp. 257-260.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2007). The Polemic with Rousseau over Gender and Sociability in E. S. Urusova’s Polion (1774). Russian Review. Vol. 66 (October 2007), pp. 586-601.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2007). The Methodological Advantages of Digital Editions (The Case of Eighteenth-Century Russian Texts). Slavic and East European Information Resources/Haworth Press. Vol. vol. 8 (no. 2-3)
    • Levitt, M. C. (2006). ‘Vechernee i ‘Utrenee razmyshleniia o Bozhiem velichestve’ Lomonosova kak fiziko-teologicheskie proizvedeniia [Lomonosov’s “Evening” and “Morning” Meditations as Physico-Theological Works]. XVIII vek [18th Century]/Nauka (Russian Academy of Sciences). Vol. 24 (2006)
    • Levitt, M. C. (2004). Sumarokov’s Sanctuary of Virtue (1759) as ‘the First Russian Ballet’. Experiment/IMRC. Vol. 10 (2004), pp. pp. 51-84..
    • Levitt, M. C. (2003). Oda kak otkrovenie: O pravoslavnom bogoslovskom kontekste lomonosovskikh od [The Ode as Revelation: On the Orthodox Theological Context of Lomonosov’s Odes]. Slavianskii almanankh [Slavic Almanac]/Indrik. Vol. 2003 (Moscow, pp. 2004).
    • Levitt, M. C. (2002). Sumarokov and the Unified Poetry Book: ‘Ody toržestvennyia’ and ‘Elegii ljiubovnyja’ Through the Prism of Tradition. Russian Literature (North Holland)/Elsevier Science. Vol. Special Issue, pp. Eighteenth Century Russian Literatu.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2001). Notes on a Joint Russian-American Expedition to the Semeiskii Old Believers of Transbaikal (with photographs). Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association/Slavic and East European Folklore Association. Vol. 6, pp. 2 (Fall 2001).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). The Illegal Staging of Sumarokov’s ‘Sinav i Truvor’ in 1770 and the Problem of Authorial Status in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Slavic and East European Journal. Vol. 43, pp. 2 (Summer 1999).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1999). Paskvil’, polemika, kritika: ‘Pis’mo… pisannoe ot priiatelia k priiateliu’ (1750 g.) Trediakovskogo i problema sozdaniia russkoi literaturnoi kritiki [Trediakovsky’s ‘Letter… ’ of 1750 and the Creation of Russian Literary Criticism]. XVIII vek [18th Century]/Nauka (Russian Academy of Sciences). Vol. 21, pp. pp. 62-72..
    • Levitt, M. C. (1998). An Antidote to Nervous Juice: Catherine the Great’s Debate with Chappe d’Auteroche over Russian Culture. Eighteenth-Century Studies/Johns Hopkins University Press. Vol. 2, pp. 1 (1998).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1995). Sumarokov – chitatel’ Peterburgskoi biblioteki Akademii nauk [Sumarokov as Reader at the Academy of Sciences Library]. XVIII vek [18th Century]/Nauka (Russian Academy of Sciences). Vol. 19, pp. pp. 43-59..
    • Levitt, M. C. (1994). Sumarokov’s Russianized ‘Hamlet’: Texts and Contexts. Slavic and East European Journal. Vol. 38, pp. 2 (Summer 1994).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1993). Puškin Pro Semiosis: The Dialectic of the Sign in Canto One of ‘Eugene Onegin’. Russian Literature (North Holland)/Elsevier Science. Vol. 34 (November 1993), pp. pp. 439-450..
    • Levitt, M. C. (1993). Drama Sumarokova ‘Pustynnik’: k voprosu o zhanrovykh i ideinykh istochnikakh russkogo klassitsizma [Sumarokov’s Drama ‘The Hermit’: On the Generic and Intellectual Sources of Russian Classicism]. XVIII vek [18th Century]/Nauka (Russian Academy of Sciences). Vol. 18, pp. pp. 59-74..
    • Levitt, M. C. (1991). Siniavskii’s Alternative Autobiography ‘A Voice from the Chorus’. Canadian Slavonic Papers/Canadian Association of Slavists. Vol. 33, pp. 1 (March 1991).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1988). Aksakov’s ‘Family Chronicle’ and the Oral Tradition. Slavic and East European Journal. Vol. 32, pp. 2 (Summer 1988).
    • Levitt, M. C. (1987). Translation with notes, Apollon Grigor’ev’s ‘Paradoxes of Organic Criticism’. Ulbandus Review/Dept. of Slaviic Langs., Columbia University. Vol. 5-6 (Fall, pp. 1987).

    Proceedings

    • Levitt, M. C. (2015). “O velikosti Ekateriny II-oi,” in “Literaturnaia kul’tura Rossii XVIII veka, 6: Petra Philologica; Professoru Petru Evgen’evichu Bukharkinu ko dniu shestidesiatiletiia”. In N.A. Guskov, E. M. Matveev, M. V. Ponomareva (Ed.), pp. 41-56. St. Petersburg. Nestor-Istoriia.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2007). The Barbarians Among Us, or Sumarokov’s Views on Orthography. Munster, Germany. Eighteenth-Century Russia: Society, Culture, Economy, Papers from the VII. International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Wittenberg 2004/LIT-Verlag.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2003). The ‘Obviousness’ of the Truth in Eighteenth-Century Russian Thought. pp. pp. 237-45.. St. Petersburg. Filosofskii vek, 24: Istoriia filosofii kak filosofii/Sankt-Peterburgskii Tsentr istorii idei.
    • Levitt, M. C. (2003). Dialektika videniia v ‘Puteshestvii’ Radishcheva [The Dialectic of Vision in Radishchev’s Journey]. pp. p. 36-47.. St. Petersburg. A. N. Radishchev; russkoe i evropeiskoe prosveshchenie: Materialy Mezhdunarodnogo simposiuma, 24 iiunia 2003 g. [A. N. Radishchev: Russian and European Enlightenment, Materials of the International Symposium, June 24, 2002/Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Center.
    • Levitt, M. C. (1996). Was Sumarokov a Lockean Sensualist? On Locke’s Reception in Eighteenth-Century Russia. pp. p. 219-227.. Rome. A Window on Russia: Proceedings of the V International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Gargano, 1994, ed. Maria Di Salvo and Lindsey Hughes/La Fenice Edizioni.

    Other

    • Levitt, M. C. (2012). “Introduction to ‘Missive to Priapus’”. The Other Shore: Slavic and East European Culture Abroad, Past and Present.
    • Levitt, Marcus C. (Ed.). (1995). Early Modern Russian Writers, Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; Volume 150, Dictionary of Literary Biography. Bruccoli Clark Layman, Gale Research, Inc..
    • Workshop, Slavic Digital Text Workshop, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 06/15/2006
    • Workshop, TEI Text Encoding Workshop, UCLA, May 14-5, 2007,
    • Digital Project, Principle Investigator, Satirical Journals Project. The goal is to digitize USC’s collection of Russian Satirical Journals from the Revolution of 1905 (1905-1907) with an extensive searchable database. See: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15799coll1, 2007
    • Exhibit Organizer, Exhibit: “Demonocracy: All Hell Breaks Loose in 1905 Russia,” Treasure Room, Doheny Memorial Library, USC. Co-curated with Tyson Gaskill, John Bowlt, Mark Konecny, Oleg Minin., 09/11/2011-12/15/2011
    • Workshop Organizer, Workshop on: “Faculty Curation: Developing a Digital Archive to Provide both Content and Context,” Doheny Memorial Library, USC. Sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Research., 09/10/2011
    • On-line Book Review, Book review, of Segel, Harold B. The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945-1990. Reviews and Critical Commentary (CritCom), published by the Council for European Studies, Columbia University. http://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/critcom/the-walls-behind-the-curtain-2/, 10/23/2013
    • Memorial tribute, “Viktor Markovich Zhivov (1945-2013): A Personal Tribute,” The Bridge/MOCT, 2: 4 (7), 2013; http://thebridge-moct.org/.

      ,

    • Producer, For a performance of “The Roads We Did Not Choose,” a play about women in the Stalinist Gulag, presented by two visiting Russian actresses. I also prepared a power-point with translation of the script., 03/04/2014
    • Video Essays, Three short video visual essays on the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905 prepared for (and with the help of) USC’s Digital Library., 2015
    • On-line article, “The Visual Polemic in Tolstoy’s War and Peace: Icons and Oil Paintings.” Journal of Icon Studies 3 (2020); https://www.museumofrussianicons.org/levitt/, 2020
    • On-line Book Review, Julia Kristeva. “Dostoyevsky, or The Flood of Language.” Trans. Jody Gladding (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), H-Russia, H-Net Reviews. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=57483, 2022
    • On-line Book Review, Book review, of Edythe Haber, “Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter,” Women East-West Newsletter, Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS), Vol. 12, Issue 1 (Spring 2023), https://mailchi.mp/4e32adfc32be/news-from-awss-vol-11-issue-1-spring-15824884?e=c265d27250, 2023
    • “Outstanding Contribution to Scholarship” from AATSEEL, 2022-2023
    • “Collegio Matteo Ricci” (a competitive post-doc). University of Macerata, Italy, Fall 2017
    • USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award, “For outstanding contributions in teaching, research, and service”, 2013
    • 2012 Marc Raeff Book Prize, Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association, for “The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia”, 2012-2013
    • USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, For “The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia”, 2012-2013
    • Finalist, Best New Book in Slavic Literature of 2010, AATSEEL, for ” Early Modern Russian Letters”., 2011-2012
    • Fulbright Award, Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Grant, 1990-1991
    • USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, For “Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880”, 1989

  • Administrative Appointments

    • Director of Graduate Studies, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 08/31/2013 –
    • Chair, Slavic Languages and Literatures, 09/01/2004 – 08/15/2007

    Media, Alumni, and Community Relations

    • Cameo interview in the film “Pushkin is Our Everything” (2014), dir. Michael Beckelheimer., Spring 2015

  • Conferences Organized

    • Conference Organizer, “Poison Pens: the Satirical Journals of the 1905 Revolution.” 240 Doheny Memorial Library, USC. , Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240., Fall 2011
    • Organizer, Symposium on 17th-18th Century Russia, USC and the Huntington Library, 04/08/2000 – 04/09/2000
    • Organizer, Conference on Russian Pornography, USC, 05/24/1998 – 05/26/1998
    • Organizer, Catherine the Great: Her Life and Legacy , UCLA, 10/18/1997

    Editorships and Editorial Boards

    • Member, Editorial Board, Slavic Review, 2005 –
    • Member, Editorial Board, Slavic and East European Journal, 1998 –
    • Member, Editorial Board, Pushkin Review / Pushkin Journal, 1997 –

    Professional Memberships

    • Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association (ECRSA), 2000 –
    • North American Pushkin Society (NAPS), 1993 –
    • Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia (SGECR), 1992 –
    • American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), 1984 –
    • American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages (AATSEEL), 1984 –
    • Phi Beta Kappa, 1976 –