Faculty and Staff

Curriculum Vitae

John Randolph

Assistant Professor, Department of History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Department of History
309 Gregory Hall
810 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61801
E-mail: jwr@illinois.edu

Education:

  • Ph.D. Late Modern European History, University of California, Berkeley December, 1997.
  • M.A. Modern European History, U.C. Berkeley, 1991.
  • B.A. History (Russian Studies), Carleton College, 1989 magna cum laude.

Dissertation

  • Title: "The Bakunins: Family, Nobility, and Social Thought in Imperial Russia, 1780-1840."
  • Chair: Prof. Reginald E. Zelnik
  • Completed October 13, 1997.

Publications and Research in Progress

  • “The Old Mansion: Revisiting the History of the Russian Country Estate.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 1: 4 (Fall, 2000): 729-49.
  • The Priamukhino Harmony: A Family Romance in Russian Social Thought. Under development by preliminary agreement with Stanford University Press.

Teaching Experience

  • August 2001-Present: Assistant Professor of Early Russian History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  • August 1999 – July 2001: Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University, IHUM
  • Conducted Freshmen seminars in the humanities, specializing in 19th and 20th century Russian literature and culture.
  • Spring , 1997: Graduate Student Instructor, U.C. Berkeley: History 101
  • Seminar instructor, "Enlightenment and Cultural Change in Europe," examining the links between high and low culture in modern European history. Supervised independent research projects (theses) by graduating Berkeley undergraduates.
  • Spring, 1994: Graduate Student Instructor, U.C. Berkeley: History 101
  • Taught "Writing Lives: History and Practice of Biography,"  a senior research seminar exploring the foundations and limits of biography as a historical genre.
  • Fall, 1992- Spring, 1993: Graduate Student Instructor, U.C. Berkeley: History 5
  • Conducted discussion sections, graded, lectured on Russian history within a survey of Modern European History, 1492-1992.

Scholarly Activities

  • Co-Organizer, “Second Berkeley-Tartu Colloquium on Russian Cultural History,” which took place in Berkeley, CA in April of 1996.  This interdisciplinary seminar brought together students of cultural history from these two universities for a two-day conference with the hope of establishing better collaboration between American and Post-Soviet scholarship

Papers Delivered

  • “The Bakunins and their World: Family Idyll and Family Romance in Russia, 1780-1840.” Invited Talk, sponsored by the Department of History and Russian Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, April 26, 2001.
  • “Belinsky as Historian.” All-California Russian History Miniconference, Berkeley, CA, April 21, 2001.
  • “The Good Creature: The Bakunins in Russian Social Thought, 1780-1840.” Invited Talk, the Stanford Colloquium in Imperial Russian History, Palo Alto, CA, April 5, 2001.
  • "The Legal Village: A Constitution for a Russian Seigneurial Estate in the Year 1803." Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), November 16, 1996.
  • "Wolves and Weddings: Romance, Self, and Society in Russia, 1829-1834." Given at the Social Science Research Council Workshop on Russian Imperial History: Self and Story in Russian History, La Jolla, CA, September 1996.
  • "The Sedition of Torzhok." Given at the Second Tartu-Berkeley Colloquium on Cultural History, Berkeley, April 1996.
  • "Ein gutes schwaches Geschöpf: Dobro i zlo v 'Bor'be za Varen'kino osvobozhdenie' [A Good, Weak Creature: Good and Evil in the 'Battle for Varenka's Emancipation']." Given at the First Tartu-Berkeley Colloquium on Cultural History, Tartu, Estonia, March 1995.
  • "Priamukhino: Genesis of an Idyll." Given at the AAASS, Philadelphia, November 1994.

Scholarships and Awards

  • Recipient, Northern California Phi Beta Kappa Summer Fellowship, June 1997
  • Graduate Student Invitee, Social Science Research Council Workshop on Imperial Russian History, La Jolla CA, September 1996
  • Long-Term Research Fellow, IREX (International Research Exchanges Board), St.Petersburg, Russia, 1994-1995
  • University Fellowship, U.C. Berkeley, 1993-1994
  • Humanities Research Grant, U.C. Berkeley, Summer 1992
  • Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, 1990-1992; 1996
  • Visiting Student in Russian Literature, Herzen State Pedagogical Institute, Leningrad, U.S.S.R. 1990 (Sponsored by the Institute for International Education, New York)
  • Phi Beta Kappa, Carleton College 1989

Archival and Museum Research Experience

Read in the manuscript collections of the following institutions, among others:
  • Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) St. Petersburg,  Russia.
  • National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia.
  • Saltykov-Shchedrin Regional Museum, Tver, Russia.
  • State Archive of Kalinin Province, Tver, Russia.
  • Russian Archive of Ancient Documents (RGADA), Moscow, Russia.
  • State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), Moscow, Russia.
  • Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France.
  • International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
  • The Emma Goldman Papers,  Berkeley, U.S.A.
  • The Bakhmetev Archive (Columbia University), New York, U.S.A.

International Experience, 1987-1998

  • Fall, 1987: Associated Colleges of the Midwest Semester in the U.S.S.R.
  • Completed an intensive course in Russian culture and language while spending a semester in the Southern Russian city of Krasnodar.  Visited Soviet Georgia and Armenia.
  • September, 1989- June, 1990: Herzen State Pedagogical Institute, Leningrad
  • Studied Russian folklore and history on a scholarship provided by the Institute for International Education (New York, NY).  Participated in numerous folklore expeditions to central Russia.
  • February, 1989- June, 1990: Consular Assistant, U.S. Consulate, Leningrad.  Explained visa application procedures to groups of Soviet nationals.  Translated and drafted official correspondence for Consular Division.
  • Summer, 1991: Language Student, Langue Onze, Paris, France.
  • Studied French language and culture during a three-month stay in Paris sponsored by the Mellon Foundation.
  • Summer, 1992: Researcher, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom)
  • Began archival research for dissertation on the Bakunin family, sponsored by a Humanities Research Grant from the University of California at Berkeley.
  • Summer, 1994: Language Student, Technical University of Berlin.
  • Studied German language and culture during a three-month stay in Berlin.  Visited Prague.
  • September, 1994- July, 1995: IREX Long-Term Research, Russian Federation
  • Continued research for dissertation at St. Petersburg’s Institute of Russian Literature.  Also worked in libraries,  archives, and museums in Moscow and Tver (Central Russia).
  • May, 1996: Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom)
  • Returned to St. Petersburg for final dissertation research.
  • Summer, 1998: Translator and Consultant, KPMG Peat Marwick, LLP
  • Travelled to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev (Ukraine) as a translator for a survey of Russian and Ukrainian telecommunications executives conducted by a major management consulting firm.

Languages

  • Russian: Fluent.
  • French: Conversational/ Fluent Reading.
  • German: Reading.