Dr Nick Mayhew
- Lecturer in Russian (School of Modern Languages & Cultures)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323Biography
Before joining the University of Glasgow, I was a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford (2021-2022) and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in Slavic Languages & Literatures at Stanford University (2018-2021). I received my PhD in Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge in 2018.
Research interests
My research explores queer gender and sexuality in Russophone and Church Slavonic culture. As a gay man living in Moscow when Russia first introduced a law against the "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations", I saw first-hand how culture, history and religion can be manipulated to fuel discrimination. My research is premised on telling queer counternarratives about Russophone culture and especially religion, to shine light on a rich queer heritage too often obscured from scholarly perception.
I am particularly interested in bringing queerness to light in contexts that are usually deemed conservative and heteronormative, such as within the Russian Orthodox Church. On the one hand, I am interested in thinking through how sexual minorities negotiate their relationships with cultural and religious traditions that have marginalised them, and on the other hand, I look at queerness inherent to the traditions themselves.
My publications focus mainly on the early modern period, although I am moving increasingly into the modern and contemporary periods. I am also interested in the telling of cultural, historical and religious narratives about gender and sexuality in the present, and in queerness in Russophone pop culture.
Grants
British Academy Early Career Research Network event grant (“Global Queer and Trans Histories Beyond Academia", 2023)
British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies event grant ("Queering Russia: Academia and Activism in Dialogue", 2022)
Andrew W. Mellon fellowship at Stanford University (2018-2021)
Early Slavic Studies Association prize for best article ("Banning Spiritual Brotherhoods and Establishing Marital Chastity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy and Ruthenia", 2018)
Supervision
2023-present: Joseph Paolantonacci (gender and dark fantasy)
I would be thrilled to supervise graduate students interested in gender and sexuality in Russophone contexts, or medieval and early modern Slavonic culture.
Teaching
- Classic European Cinema (2023 onward)
- Heroic Men (Comparative Literature) (2023 onward)
- Queerness in Russophone Cultures (2023 onward)
- Russian Culture and State Power (2022 onward)
- Russian Culture 2 (2022 onward)
- Russian Language 2 (2022-2023)
- Russian Senior Honours (2023 onward)
- Transnational Constructions of Gender (2024 onward)
