Department of History

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Abigail Karas

Teaching Associate in Soviet History, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I completed my doctoral thesis On Top of the City: Rooftops, Rights to Space and The Fight for St Petersburg's Panoramas at the University of Oxford in 2022 and passed my viva with no corrections. This project was funded by CEELBAS and a Senior Scholarship from University College, Oxford. Prior to this, I received my BA in Russian and Linguistics from the University of Oxford and my MA in Material and Visual Culture from University College London.

Before coming to Nottingham, I taught at Liverpool John Moores University and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL.

Expertise Summary

My research and teaching interests are quite broad covering a range of topics in 20th- and 21st-century Soviet and post-Soviet society and culture to the present day, but I am predominantly interested in local politics and identity, material culture and the built environment, with a focus on cities. My research examines the interaction between urban space and local identity in Russia and Moldova, the legacies of centralised planning, and the impact of postsocialist transition and neoliberal urbanism in the countries of the former Soviet Union. I am also interested in interdisciplinarity and the use of alternative methodological approaches to the study and critique of history, culture and society.

In 2022, I was awarded the Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) Emerging Scholar Prize for my research on the St Petersburg built environment and the phenomenon of mansardisation. In their report, the jury praised both my "methodological scope" and my "historical range".

Recent Publications

Department of History

University of Nottingham
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Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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