About

Brittany Roberts earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from University of California, Riverside. Her work focuses on 20th- and 21st-century Russian and Anglophone literature and cinema, particularly speculative fiction and the environmental humanities. She is currently preparing her first book, which undertakes a comparative analysis of Russian and Anglophone horror literature and cinema focusing on depictions of humans, animals, the environment, and the ecological and metaphysical dynamics that link them. Brittany has published articles and chapters in The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, The Spaces and Places of Horror, Plants in Science Fiction: Speculative Vegetation, and the forthcoming collection Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene. She is especially interested in how horror and other speculative fiction genres disrupt the human-nonhuman binary and in how speculative fiction reconsiders, challenges, and reconceives of our relations with other species.

Education


  • Ph.D., Comparative Literature – University of California, Riverside (2020)

  • M.A., Slavic Languages and Literatures – University of Chicago (2013)

  • B.A., English / Russian Language and Culture – University of Florida (2011)

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters


 


2021




  • “Russian and Slavic Science Fiction.” The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint, Routledge, 2021 (manuscript in preparation)

  • “‘This Bird Made an Art of Being Vile’: Ontological Difference and Uncomfortable Intimacies in Stephen Gregory’s The Cormorant.” Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene, edited by Christy Tidwell and Carter Soles, Penn State University Press, 2021 (in press)


2020




  • “Between the Living and the Dead: Vegetal Afterlives in Evgenii Iufit and Vladimir Maslov’s Silver Heads.” Plants in Science Fiction: Speculative Vegetation, edited by Katherine Bishop, David Higgins, and Jerry Määttä, University of Wales Press, 2020, pp. 81-104


2019




  • “Human Trespass, Inhuman Space: Monstrous Landscapes in Carter Smith’s The Ruins.” The Spaces and Places of Horror, edited by Francesco Pascuzzi and Sandra Waters, Vernon Press, 2019, pp. 55-73


2017




  • “Helping Eleanor Come Home: A Reassessment of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.” The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, no. 16, 2017, pp. 67-93


Encyclopedia Entries


 

2017




  • “Body Horror.” Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories That Speak to Our Deepest Fears, edited by Matt Cardin, Greenwood, 2017, p. 229-30

  • “Brite, Poppy Z.” Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories That Speak to Our Deepest Fears, edited by Matt Cardin, Greenwood, 2017, p. 244-5

  • “Gogol, Nikolai.” Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories That Speak to Our Deepest Fears, edited by Matt Cardin, Greenwood, 2017, pp. 388-90

  • “Werewolves.” Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories That Speak to Our Deepest Fears, edited by Matt Cardin, Greenwood, 2017, pp. 836-8


Book Reviews


 


2021




  • Review of Celestial Hellscapes: Cosmology as the Key to the Strugatskiis’ Science Fictions by Kevin Reese, Extrapolation, 2021 (manuscript in preparation)


2017




  • Review of the second edition of The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, Science Fiction Film and Television, vol. 10, no. 1, 2017, pp. 125-9

  • Review of Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film by Xavier Aldana Reyes, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 27, no. 1, 2017, pp. 155-8


2016




  • “The Unknown Lem.” Double review of Lemography: Stanislaw Lem in the Eyes of the World, edited by Peter Swirski and Waclaw M. Osadnik, and Stanislaw Lem: Philosophies of the Future by Peter Swirski, Science Fiction Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, 2016, pp. 598-601


2014




  • “Elusive Information about a Largely Untranslated SF Tradition.” Review of Ukrainian Science Fiction: Historical and Thematic Perspectives by Walter Smyrniw, Science Fiction Studies, vol. 41, no. 3, 2014, pp. 674-6

Blog Posts

    Upcoming Talks and Conferences

    2020

    • “Ecological Intimacies in the Anthropocene: Horror, Ethics, and the Shadow of Nonhuman Difference.” University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, November 23 (virtual talk)

    Memberships


    • Society for Cinema and Media Studies

    • American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

    • Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

    • Modern Language Association

    • Society for Literature, Science and the Arts

    • Science Fiction Research Association

    • Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

    • International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

    • Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

    • Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society

    Brittany R. Roberts

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    Active 2 years, 10 months ago