Jane E. Knox-Voina
Professor of Russian, Chair of Russian Department
Spring 2008
- Dostoevsky and the Novel (GWS 221)
- Elementary Russian II (RUS 102)
- Modern Russian Literature (RUS 310)
| Phone | (207) 725-3355 |
| Title | Professor |
| Department | RUSSIAN |
| 2nd Title | Chair |
| 2nd Department | RUSSIAN |
| Work Location | 8 Sills Hall |
| jknox@bowdoin.edu |
 |
Education:
A.B. (Wheaton),
A.M. (Michigan State),
Ph.D. (Texas-Austin),
Jane Knox-Voina, Professor of Russian, completed her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Texas, where she focused on the poetry of poet Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky. Knox-Voina met Brodsky in 1968, and invited him to give public readings of his poetry at Bowdoin on several occasions.
She joined the Bowdoin faculty in the fall of 1976. Since then, Professor Knox-Voina -- who has a deaf son -- has become interested in non-verbal cultural signs (behavior, gestures, drawings, paintings, visual images, etc.). She studied their influence on personality development for two years at the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, and in a post-doctoral program in the Human Development Program of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since 1991, she has studied the influence of national cultures on personal development in the non-Russian areas of the former Soviet Union (Northern Siberia, Ukraine, and Estonia). Knox-Voina is also a Research Associate at the Davis Center of Russian Studies at Harvard University, where she pursues her research interests.
In 1994, she deepened her study of the visual arts, focusing on Russian painting and film as expressions of the mentality of the new Russians. Besides teaching all levels of Russian language, she offers many courses in English translation that address her special interests -- RUS 221: Russian Culture through the Visual Media (focus on art and film, supplemented by literary readings): The Great Soviet Experiment; Rus 222: Women in Soviet Societies; RUS 223: the Novels of Dostoevsky (Film is integrated into all these courses.).
She has published extensively in the area of Russian film and literature and has translated into English two volumes by the well known Soviet psychologist, Lev Vygotsky.
Professor Knox-Voina has traveled extensively all over the former Soviet Union since 1966 including Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukrainian and the Baltic States. She has guided numerous student tours, including several from Bowdoin. Since 1995, she has been invited to attend the International Sochi Film Festival on the Black Sea, where she views the latest films and interviews actors and film directors. Professor Knox-Voina brought some of these film artist to Bowdoin in 1996 for the International Women's Film Festival, which she organized.
More recently, she brought Uliana Vinokurova, member of the Yakut-Sakha Parliament (Northern Siberia) to Bowdoin's forum, Women in Politics: A Diverse Spectrum, where she talked about problems of nationalism and women in that area. Professor Knox-Voina and Deputy Vinokurova then traveled together to consult with Native Americans of Northern Maine about ways of rejuvenating traditional cultures and languages.
She is a member of the Bowdoin Chorus directed by Antony Antolini. In her earlier years here she organized and directed a Bowdoin Russian Chorus and Dance Group, which performed together with the Balalaika Orchestra of Richmond, Maine, a nearby Russian community.
Prof. Knox-Voina at the Sochi Film Festival