Tatiana Klepikova leads a research group on queer literary cultures under socialism, funded by a Freigeist Fellowship of the Volkswagen Foundation. She received her PhD in Slavic Literary Studies at the University of Passau in 2019 and before coming to Regensburg, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Universities of Toronto and Potsdam. She is the author of Homophobia: Soviet and Post-Soviet (an Element forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) and co-editor of several interdisciplinary volumes and special issues, including Beyond Queer Cold Wars: Deconstructing Bipolar Visions of Gender and Sexuality (with Maryna Shevtsova and Emil Edenborg; forthcoming with Palgrave). She is also the editor and translator of Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Research interests: transnational and transregional literary and cultural histories, 1900s – today (esp. in Russia, East-Central Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia) | gender and sexuality, minoritized voices, the body & materiality | theater & performance, visual cultures, digital cultures | feminist cultural studies, comparative literature, performance studies | gender studies and queer theory, memory studies
Education and positions
| Education | |
|---|---|
| 2015 – 2019 | Ph.D. Slavic Literary Studies (magna cum laude) | University of Passau (DE) within DFG Research Training Group 1681/2 “Privacy and Digitalization” |
| 2012 – 2015 | M.A. Russian and East Central European Studies | University of Passau (DE) |
| 2007 – 2012 | Diploma, Teacher of English and Spanish Languages (with distinction) Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University, Yaroslavl (RU) |
Employment Record | |
| 2022 – 2028 | Research Group Leader (Volkswagen Foundation Freigeist Fellow) Research group: “Light On! Queer Literatures and Cultures under Socialism," Institute for Slavic Studies, University of Regensburg (DE) |
| 2021 – 2022 | Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer Department of Culture and Literature of Central and Eastern Europe, University of Potsdam (DE) |
| 2019 – 2021 | Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow Women & Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto (CA) |
| 2018 – 2019 | Postdoctoral fellow (starting grant) DFG Research Training Group “Privacy and Digitalization,” University of Passau (DE) |
| 2018 – 2019 | Adjunct Lecturer in Russian Literature and Culture Chair of Slavic Literatures and Cultures, University of Passau (DE) |
| 2012 – 2018 | Adjunct Lecturer in Russian Language Language Center, University of Passau (DE) |
Research projects
Light On! Queer Literatures and Cultures under Socialism (2022-2028)
Volkswagen Foundation, Freigeist Fellowship (research group funding): € 1,413,300 | 2022–2027
Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics (2024-2028)
AHRC-DFG UK-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities
with Vlad Strukov (U of Leeds) and Timothy Nunan (U of Regensburg)
total funding from both agencies: € 1,210,000 | 2025–2028
Research network “Margins of Memory: Cultures and Politics of Non-Hegemonic Remembrance" (external link, opens in a new window) (2025-2027)
with Volha Bartash (Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, IOS)
Leibniz ScienceCampus Regensburg, total funding: € 22,500 | 2025–2027
Publications
selected publication, see an extended list here (external link, opens in a new window)
MONOGRAPHS
(forthcoming) Russian Queer Theater: From Perestroika to Putin. London/New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. (Book series “Queer Performance: International Practices, Histories, and Approaches,” series eds. Alyson Campbell, Stephen Farrier, and Nando Messias) |
Status: under contract, manuscript submission in Aug 2026.
(forthcoming) Homophobia: Soviet and Post-Soviet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(book series “Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History,” series eds. Rebecca Friedman and Mark Edele). | Status: under contract, revised manuscript submitted to the publisher.
2024 Crossing Soviet Thresholds: Privacy in Late Soviet Literature. University of Passau https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-uni-passau/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1377 (external link, opens in a new window)
(dissertation defended in 2019, revised monograph published in 2024).
JOURNAL EDITOR
Digital Cultures of the Global East (www.digitalicons.org (external link, opens in a new window))
Curating editor of the research and artistic hub, including an open-access journal.
ARTICLES & CHAPTERS
2026 Tatiana Klepikova and Maryna Shevtsova, “Transitional Justice and Its Queer Discontents in Armenia: Notes on War, Peace, and Care.” International Journal of Transitional Justice (March 2026 Vol 20, Issue 1), special issue “Dissident Genders, Sexualities and Transitional Justice,” guest eds. Pascha Bueno-Hansen and José Fernando Serrano-Amaya. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijaf037.
2024 “Do Feminist Milestones Burn? Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer in Times of War.” In: Milestones in Feminist Performance, eds. Tiina Rosenberg, Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Sandra D’Urso. London/New York: Routledge, 197–215.
2023 “Monsters with a Family and Tradition: Queering Family and Mapping Queer Culture in Central Russia’s Vampires,” special cluster in Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, “Contemporary Russian Queer Cinema,” guest ed. Vlad Strukov, 246–260, https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2023.2241803 (external link, opens in a new window).
2022 “A Quare Story of the North Caucasian Lesbian and Trans Women in the Staging of The Voices.” In Queering Russian Media and Culture, ed. Galina Miazhevich. London/New York: Routledge, 95–113.
2021 “(Trans-)Forming Gender Ideologies through Performance in Russia: Cyberfeminist Somatexts of the Maailmanloppu Theatre.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance, eds. Tiina Rosenberg, Sandra D’Urso, and Anna Renée Winget. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69555-2_17 (external link, opens in a new window).
Teaching
Understanding Russia through Theater (advanced BA seminar, Winter 2025/2026)
Homophobie in Osteuropa: Diskurse der Queerfeindlichkeit und LGBTQ-Agency verstehen (BA/MA seminar, Summer 2024)
Committees
B.A. Slavic Studies, Exam Committee (Prüfungsausschuss, since Oct 2025)
Representative of the non-professorial staff (Mittelbauvertreterin; Oct 2023 –Sep 2027)
working group “AI-Glasnost” (since Jan 2025)
Institute's website officer (since May 2024)