Natalia Dame

Research, Teaching, Practice, and Clinical Appointments

• Lecturer, University of Southern California, 2020-08-
• Lecturer (Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California, Fall 2019
• Lecturer of Russian, USC, Fall 2016

PostDoctoral Appointments

• Dornsife Preceptor Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow , University of Southern California, 08/2017 – 05/2019

Other Employment

• Teaching Assistant, Metamorphoses: Humans and other Terrestrial Beings, USC,
• Teaching Assistant, Symbols and Conceptual Systems: Thematic Option Honors Program, USC, Fall Spri
• Assistant Lecturer, Intermediate Russian I, USC, 2011-2012
• Assistant Lecturer, Intermediate Russian I, USC,
• Assistant Lecturer, Beginning Russian II, USC, Spring Spri
• English Language Instructor, Rice University, Texas, 2007-2009
• English Language Instructor, Language Schools in Odessa, Ukraine; Moscow, Russia; Casablanca, Morocco; Louisiana Tech University, Louisiana; Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, 2003-2007
• Russian Teaching Assistant (Summer Intensive Language Program), Beloit College, Wisconsin, 06/2003-08/2003
• Russian Language Resident, Pomona College, California, 08/2001-06/2003

Summary Statement of Research Interests

My dissertation examines the myth of the “martyr-heroine” through Russian literary portrayals of the feminine in late nineteenth-century works by Polonsky, Turgenev, Korolenko, Garshin, and Tolstoy. As a feature of historical, social, and cultural transformations of the 1870s-1890s, the subversive concept of the martyr-heroine enables a previously overlooked transition from the realist tropes of mother, wife, daughter, bride, and adulteress to the fin-de-siècle eternal feminine and femme fatale. Not simply a fictional character but a powerful cultural construct, the notion of the martyr-heroine changes the way we think about the literary depiction of women because it bridges the gap between unrelated realist and Symbolist female types to form an integrated and continuous concept of the modern Russian feminine.

Research Keywords

Russian revolutionary culture, terrorism, the “martyr-heroine,” the Woman Question, the “strong woman,” the Eternal Feminine, Femme Fatales, the nymphet, Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-1906, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Korolenko, Polonsky, Stepniak-Kravchinsky, Solov’ev, Artsybashev, Blok, Zasulich, the trial of the Fifty, Bardina, Figner, Perovskaia, the concept of the feminine, female violence, prostitution, martyrdom, sacrifice, Realist female tropes, saints, nihilists, Nicholas II, censorship

Other Presentations

• Writing the ‘Martyr-Heroine’: The Prostitute in Garshin (forthcoming), AATSEEL Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2016-2017
• Beyond the Family: Revolutionary Heroines in the Russian Fiction of the Late 1870s-Early 1880s (forthcoming), ASEEES Conference , Washington D.C., 2016-2017
• Embracing the Feminine or In Search of Lost Childhood in Nabokov’s “Lolita”, AATSEEL Conference, Austin, TX, 2015-2016
• From Virginal to Violated: The Narrative of Rape in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Visual and Literary Cultures, ASEEES Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2015-2016
• Russia in Distress or the Tortured Virgins in the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-1906, AATSEEL Conference, Vancouver, Canada, 2014-2015
• A Little Boy or a Pine Cone: The Portrayal of Nicholas II in the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-1906, ASEEES Conference , San Antonio, TX, 2014-2015
• Using Russian Songs to Reinforce Textbook Vocabulary and Grammar, ACTFL Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2014-2015
• Russia in Distress or the Tortured Virgins in the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-1906 , USC 6th Annual Graduate Research Symposium, USC, Los Angeles, 2013-2014
• Pastoral Space as an Epic Stand-in in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel, ASEEES Conference, Boston, MA, 2013-2014
• Teaching Through Games: Let the Fun Begin, AATSEEL Conference, Boston, MA, 2012-2013
• Using Czech Fairy-Tales to Teach Literacy Skills, AATSEEL Conference, Boston, MA, 2012-2013
• The Making of a Righteous Man in Leskov’s “Figura”, ASEEES Conference, New Orleans, LA, 2012-2013
• Invariance in Zoshchenko’s Rasskazy o Lenine or Have You Passed the Carafe Test?, CAS Conference, University of Waterloo, Canada, 2011-2012
• Using Czech Songs to Reinforce Textbook Vocabulary and Grammar, AATSEEL Conference, Seattle, Washington, 2011-2012
• Why is Sharikov Dead or The Fate of Creatures in Frankenstein and Heart of a Dog, AATSEEL Conference, Seattle, Washington, 2011-2012
• Censorship and the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-06: The Battle for Freedom of Speech, AATSEEL Conference, Pasadena, California, 2010-2011
• Sterile Encounters in Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin, California Slavic Colloquium, Stanford University, California, 2010-2011
• The Search for Female Identity in the Fictional Diaries by Lidiia Zinov’eva-Annibal and Valery Briusov, CAS Conference, Montreal, Canada, 2010-2011
• The Case of Nikita Firsov, California Slavic Colloquium, USC, Los Angeles, 2009-2010

Book Chapters

• Dame, N. (2016). Scratch Lolita – Find the Martyr-Heroine or The Russian Origins of Nymphetology. Salem Press: Critical Insights: Nabokov’s “Lolita”.

Book Review

• Dame, N. (2015). Kaminer, Jenny. Women with a Thirst for Destruction: The Bad Mother in Russian Literature. The Slavic and East European Journal.
• Dame, N. V. (2010). Kukulin, I., M. Lipovetskii, and M Maiofis, eds. Veselye chelovechki: Kul’turnye geroi sovetskogo detstva. Slavic and East European Journal. pp. 383-384.

Journal Article

• Dame, N. (2014). The Search for Narrative Control: Music and Female Sexuality in Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness” and “The Kreutzer Sonata”. Ulbandus Review. Vol. 16, pp. 158-176.

Newpaper

• Dame, N. V. (2013). Using Czech Fairy Tales to Teach Literacy Skills. Czech Language News. pp. 2-6. PubMed Web Address

• Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2015-2016
• Grant to attend the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Assessment Workshop, Indiana University, 2016/07/05-2016/07/08
• 2016 ASEEES Kathryn W. Davis Graduate Student Travel Grant, Spring 2016
• Endowed Fellowship Travel Award, USC Graduate School, October 2015, Fall 2015
• Summer Research Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC, 2015/06/01-2015/08/31
• 2014 USC Libraries Research Award (First Place), 2014-2015
• Research Associateship at the Summer Research Lab, The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015/06
• Conference Travel Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC, Fall 2014
• Gold Family Fellowship, 2014/06/01-2014/08/31
• Summer Research Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC, 2014/06/01-2014/08/31
• Bing Arnold Endowed Fellowship, 2013-2014
• Conference Travel Grant, USC Graduate Student Government, Spring 2014
• Round Two Finalist at USC 6th Graduate Research Symposium , Spring 2014
• Conference Travel Grant, USC Graduate Student Government, Spring 2013
• Conference Travel Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC, Fall 2012
• SSRC Eurasia Program Title VIII 2012 Workshop in Quantitative Methods at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2012/06/14-2012/06/19
• Conference Travel Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC , Spring 2012
• Conference Travel Grant, Graduate Studies Committee of CSLC, USC, Fall 2011
• Intensive Czech Language Course Grant, Spring 2011
• STARTALK grant to attend a two-week STARTALK seminar in Second Language and Immersion Methodologies in Concordia Villages, Bemidji, Minnesota, 2010/06/27-2010/07/10
• Conference Travel Grant, Slavic Department, USC, Spring 2010
• Government of Russian Federation stipend. Lipetsk State Pedagogical University, Russia, 2000-2001
• United States Information Agency fellowship for study at Pomona College, California, 1998-1999
• United States Information Agency fellowship for study at American Fork High School, Utah, 1995-1996

Professional Memberships

• The Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS), 2013 –
• The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), 2011 –
• The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), 2011 –
• Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS), 2010 –

Review Panels

• 2012 AATSEEL conference, SLA and Pedagogy Division, Fall 2011

Other Service to the Profession

• Served as a jury member for the 2015 USC Libraries Research Award,
• Worked as a research assistant to Professor Sarah Pratt, Slavic Department, USC. Compiled bibliography on Sedakova, Whitman and Mayakovsky,
• Compiled legal acts, press laws, and the Russian criminal code for the journal “Experiment: Demonocracy – The Satirical Journals of the 1905 Russian Revolution” ,
• Led a workshop on teaching methodology for Russian Teaching Assistants at the Slavic Department at USC ,
• Organized Russian thematic lunches such as Russian Weddings, Russian Superstitions, Russian Folk Songs, Russian Dances, and Russian Customs,
• Attended bi-weekly teacher training workshops hosted by the Slavic Department at USC ,
• Bibliography editor for Working Group for Studying Russian Children’s Literature and Culture.
  For further information see http://www.wgrclc.com/contact-us/,
• Completed USC Language Teacher Training Program for Assistant Lecturers,
• Completed a two-week STARTALK seminar in Second Language and Immersion Methodologies in Concordia Villages, Bemidji, Minnesota
  ,
• Worked as a research assistant to Professor Marcus Levitt, Slavic Department, USC.
  Wrote Russian and English commentary for the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905-06, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/about/collection/p15799coll1
  ,