Professor of Russian

PHONE: 513-529-1822
OFFICE: 148 Irvin Hall
EMAIL: sutclibm@miamioh.edu
Department: German, Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures

Degrees and Institutions

Ph.D. (Slavic Languages and Literatures) University of Pittsburgh
M.A. University of Pittsburgh
B.A. Reed College

Biography

Ben Sutcliffe came to Miami University in 2004 while completing his dissertation on images of everyday life in Russian women’s prose from the 1960s-early 2000s. This project was the basis for his first book, The Prose of Life: Russian Women Writers from Khrushchev to Putin (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009). His second book, coauthored with Elizabeth Skomp, is Ludmila Ulitskaya and the Art of Tolerance (University of Wisconsin Press, 2015). This monograph is the first study of contemporary author Liudmila Ulitskaia and her interconnected depictions of the intelligentsia, body, ethics, and history.

Sutcliffe’s research focuses on contemporary prose. He is currently examining late-Soviet author Iurii Trifonov and the relations between the intelligentsia, writing, ethics, and history.

REEES Related Courses

• RUS 101 Russian for Beginners
• RUS 102 Russian for Beginners II
• RUS 137 Russian Folklore
• RUS 201 Intermediate Russian
• RUS 202 Intermediate Russian II
• RUS/ENG 255 Russian Literature: Pushkin to Dostoevsky
• RUS/ENG 256 Russian Literature: Tolstoy to Nabokov
• RUS 257/ENG 267 Russian Literature: Pasternak to the Present
• RUS 258 Contemporary Russian Women's Writing
• RUS 301 Advanced Russian
• RUS 302 Advanced Russian II
• RUS 311 Readings in Russian
• RUS 411 Advanced Conversation and Composition

Selected Publications

• “Commemoration and Connection: Liudmila Ulitskaia and the Universe of the Body in Jacob’s Ladder.” Slavonic and East European Review. 93 (3) 2019. 451-470
• “Cake, Cabbage, and the Morality of Consumption in Iurii Trifonov’s House on the Embankment.” In Seasoned Socialism: Gender and Food in Late Soviet Everyday Life.  Eds. Angela Brintlinger, Anastasia Lakhtikova, and Irina Glushchenko. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019. 113-131
• Ludmila Ulitskaya's Art of Tolerance, coauthored with Elizabeth Skomp, under contract with University of Wisconsin Press (publication in 2015)
• The Prose of Life: Russian Women Writers from Khrushchev to Putin. (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009)
• “Secular Victims, Religious Aggressors: Liudmila Ulitskaia’s Muslims, Radical Islam, and the Russian Intelligentsia.” Russian Review 74 (2015): 191-210.
• “Everyday Life and the Ties that Bind in Liudmila Ulitskaia’s Medea and Her Children.” In Everyday Life in Russia: Subjectivities, Perspectives, and Lived Experience. Eds. David Ransel, Mary Cavender, Karen Petrone, Choi Chatterjee. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.
• “ ‘Pravdy ne khvataet: Obitel’ Z. Prilepina: dokumental’nost’ i roman vospitaniia” [The Truth is Not Enough: Zakhar Prilepin’s Monastery, Documentation and the Bildungsroman]. Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Culture 55 (2014). 190-213. http://www2.moderna.uu.se/slovo/Archives/2014-55/15_Sutcliffe.pdf
• “Iurii Trifonov’s Students: Body, Place, and Life in Late Stalinism.” Toronto Slavic Quarterly 48 (2014). 207-29. http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/48/tsq48_sutcliffe.pdf 
• “Mother, Daughter, History: Embodying the Past in Liudmila Ulitskaia’s Sonechka and The Case of Kukotskii.” Slavic and East European Journal 4 (2009). 606-22.
• “Liudmila Ulitskaia’s Literature of Tolerance.” Russian Review 68 (2009). 495-509.
• “Writing the Urals: Permanence and Ephemerality in Ol’ga Slavnikova’s 2017.” New Zealand Slavonic Journal 41 (2007). 1-17.
• “Publishing the Russian Soul? Women’s Provincial Literary Anthologies, 1990-1995.” Special edition of Soviet and Post-Soviet Review. Special issue: Russian Women and Publishing. Eds. Charlotte Rosenthal and Christine Tomei. 33 (1) 2006. 99 -113.
• “Documenting Women’s Voices in Perestroika Gulag Narratives.” Toronto Slavic Quarterly. Winter 2 002-2003. http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/03/sutcliffe.shtml. Republished in Gulag Studies 5-6 (2012-2013). 47-62.

Downloadable Publications: Miami University Scholarly Commons