Dr. Brendan Mooney

Dr. Brendan Mooney

Education

2019 - Ph.D. - University of South Carolina, Comparative Literature

Dissertation Title: "Between Holy Russia and a Monkey: Darwin's Russian Literary and Philosophical Critics"

2018 - M.A. - Middlebury Language School, Russian

Thesis Title: "Pobeda Klimenta Timiriazeva kak perevodchika Darvina"

2015 - M.A. - University of South Carolina, Comparative Literature

Thesis Title: "Making the Irrational Rational: Nietzsche and the Problem of Knowledge in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita." 

2012 - B.A. - University of South Carolina, French and Russian, cum laude

Teaching and Research Interests

  • Darwinism 

Courses Taught at Miami

  • RUS 101: Beginner's Russian
  • RUS 102: Beginner's Russian
  • RUS 137: Russian Folklore
  • RUS 201: Intermediate Russian
  • RUS 202: Intermediate Russian
  • RUS 255: Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in English Translation 
  • RUS 256: Russian Literature: Tolstoy to Nabokov

Grants and Awards

  • Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Resource Development Grant, University of South Carolina, 2019.

Selected Publications

Books
  • Between Holy Russia and a Monkey (work in progress)
  • "Of Bulldogs, Barren Virgins, and Forms Most Beautiful: Kliment Timiriazev's Legacy as a Darwinist Translator." (work in progress)
Articles
  • Article on the history of the translation of Darwin's "natural selection" into Russian (work in progress)

Presentations

  • "Dmitrii Pisarev's Economy of Nature: the Unexpected Evolution of a Darwinist." Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, Greenville, SC, March 2020. (Proposal submitted)
  • Roundtable participant on "Darwin's Reception in Russian." Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, San Francisco, CA, November 2019.
  • "Evoliutsiia: The Phylogeny of a Word in Russian." Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, Mobile, AL, March 2019.
  • "Vladimir Soloviev: The Incompatibility of Darwinian Evolution with Aesthetics in Late Nineteenth-century Russian Religious Philosophy." Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion/The American Academy of Religion, Greenville, NC, March 2019.
  • "Degeneration: The Evolution of a Term." Cultural Carolina Graduate Student Conference, Columbia, SC, March 2019.
  • "Strakhov on Darwinism: Progress, Chance, and Mechanism." Association for Slavic, Eat European, and Eurasian Studies, Boston, MA, December 2018.
  • "[Kliment A. Timiriazev's Victory as One of Charles Darwin's Translators] Pobeda Klimenta Timiriazeva kak perevodchika Darvina." Middlebury Language School, Russian School's Graduate Student Symposium, August 2018.
  • "Strakhov the Naturalist Cons Then Contras Darwin." Souther Conference on Slavic Studies, Charlotte, NC, March 2018.
  • "A Translator's Dilemma: Translating Darwin's 'Natural Selection' into Russian." Cultural Carolina Graduate Student Conference, Columbia, SC, March 2018.

Languages

  • English (native)
  • French (near-native)
  • Portuguese (reading knowledge)
  • Russian (near-native)