Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant has changed the landscape of southern Ukraine, brought unprecedented environmental damage to the Black Sea region, and will have lasting global repercussions. In response, I organised and moderated a panel discussion with Anna Ackermann, Olia Hercules, Darya Tsymbalyuk, and Jonathon Turnbull at UCL SSEES in partnership with the UIL.

I moderated evenings with Ukrainian writers Kateryna Babkina and Irena Karpa at the UIL in November and March 2023. Conversations ranged from the language of violence to volunteering and writing in exile. 

After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, some of our acquaintances went to the front or to volunteer, some were forced to leave Ukraine, some - to learn new professions. The influx of foreign media into Ukraine has created a demand for fixers - local producers, translators, organizers and psychotherapists in one bottle, helping international reporters to cover the war in Ukraine. Sasha Dovzhik and Maryana Matveychuk will share their experience of fixing and talk about the main challenges of this work. Watch here.

The Kremlin anticipated Ukraine to be defeated in a matter of two days. Western pundits largely agreed. Ukrainians have surprised both the outsiders and themselves by successfully fighting against Russia’s full-scale invasion for two months. This experience has helped to transform the prevalent cultural narrative of Ukrainian victimhood into that of defiance. Drawing on Ukrainian literary history and my experience within the volunteer movement in Lviv, I discussed the civic response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Ukrainian resistance strategies with Dr Olesya Khromeychuk and Anna Dovgopol at this Ukrainian Institute London's event. Watch the recording here.

I was honoured to speak at the Literature Vision on Ukraine event at Mishkenot, Jerusalem, about Lesia Ukrainka, her anticolonial resistance, its relevance at the time of Russia's all-out war against Ukraine, and what it means to be a Ukrainian Cassandra. My talk starts at 37:50. The following discussion with other speakers is insightful.

I feature as an expert on the pioneering Ukrainian modernist and feminist Lesia Ukrainka in the short film produced by the Ukrainian Institute in London within the series 10 Things Everyone Should Know about Ukraine (supported by the Lysiak-Rudnytsky Programme).

I have created AB 2020: The Aubrey Beardsley Society, supported by the Alessandra Wilson Fund. It presents a hybrid of a digital humanities project, an online publication platform, and an exercise in community building. 

I curate the digital archive of open-access primary and secondary sources on Aubrey Beardsley (AB Library) while also commissioning scholarly and creative pieces for the Society's publication platform (AB Blog).

I keep the community of scholars and amateurs engaged through a variety of initiatives, including the Emerging Beardsley Scholar Prize, Artist in Residence programme, and a monthly newsletter. The Society's Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube keep the Beardsley Craze ablaze! 

On 21 August 2021, Beardsley turned 149 years old while the Aubrey Beardsley Society celebrated its first year. Two Beardsleyites extraordinaire, Professor Margaret Stetz and Dr Kate Hext, helped us mark the occasion by speaking on the topics of utmost decadent interest. The event was organised by the Aubrey Beardsley Society in association with the British Association of Decadence Studies and Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies. Watch the recording here.

Part of the annual Birkbeck School of Art festival, my talk explains how fin-de-siècle poet Lesia Ukrainka dismantled the canon of patriarchy in her treatment of the foundational myths of European culture. I also explore this topic in my LARB article.