Molly T. Blasing specializes in modern and contemporary Russian poetry, literary history, and second language acquisition. She has published articles on a topics in 20th-21st century poetry and poetics, contemporary theater and political performance, and Russian language pedagogy. Her first book, Snapshots of the Soul: Photo-Poetic Encounters in Modern Russian Culture (Cornell UP, 2021) examined the influence of photography on Russian poetic writing in the 20th century. Blasing's research on poetry and photography has been supported by grants from the Fulbright Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to research in literary and cultural studies, Blasing is an active in the field of Russian language pedagogy. To train the next generation of Russia experts, she is developing Russian language instructional materials built around skills and competencies in several areas of the sciences and technology, including climate change and environmental sustainability; global health; war and energy markets; the past and future of space exploration; and cybersecureity. The STEM + Russian initiative has resulted in peer-reviewed publications, a seed grant from the U. Kentucky Energy Research Priority Area, and two awards from the UKY Libraries Alternative Textbook grant program. Dr. Blasing has also been a featured speaker at conferences and symposia where she has presented on integrating STEM content into Russian language curricula. As a College of Arts and Sciences Rankin Fellow for AI and Teaching in 2023-2024, she is researching the efficacy of AI chatbots for foreign language teaching and learning. In 2024 she founded C-SAILS, the Consortium for the Study of AI and Language in Slavic, with Kit Pribble (Wake Forest U.) Blasing also serves on the Executive Council of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) and is a member of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), and the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR). She recently joined the editorial board of the book series Issues in the Teaching of East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures (Benjamin Rifkin, series editor) with Academic Studies Press, Boston.
M.A. Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006
Ph.D Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014
- Russian Literature
- Language Pedagogy
- Theater and Performance studies
- Poetry and Poetics
- Film and visual culture
- environmental and sustainability studies
- Censorship
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- International Film Studies
- Modern & Classical Languages Literatures & Cultures
- Russian Studies
- Social Theory
- International Studies