Peter Rollberg

Peter Rollberg

Professor of Slavic Languages, Film Studies, and International Affairs, Director of Russian Language and Literature

Contact:

Email: Peter Rollberg

Office Phone: (202) 994-7084

The Elliott School of International Affairs Foggy Bottom Campus 1957 E Street, NW, 412K Washington DC 20052

Dr. Rollberg studied at Lomonosov University in Moscow and at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1988. He came to GWU in 1991 after teaching at Duke University. He served as Chair of the Department of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures in 1999-2001 and as Director of the University Honors Program in 2001-2003. In 2006, he was elected Chair of the Department of Romance, German, and Slavic Languages and Literatures. In 2010-2019, Rollberg served as Director of the M.A Program in European and Eurasian Studies and in 2012-2019 as Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES). In 2019-2022, he served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research Initiatives at the Elliott School for International Affairs.

Rollberg’s main fields of expertise are Russian and Soviet literature and film. His over 100 publications include articles on Aleksandr Pushkin (1988), Vladimir Makanin (1987, 1993), Vasily Belov (1987, 1990), Vasily Grossman (1990), Yevgeny Zamyatin (1991), Mikhail Bulgakov (1990, 1993, 2011), Anatoly Kim (1989, 1993, 2000), Fyodor Dostoevsky (2001, 2013), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (2018), and the philosopher Vladimir Ern (1998). His articles on cinema are devoted to Yakov Protazanov (2008), Sergei Bondarchuk (2008), Georgian filmmaker Goderdzi Chokheli (2012), Kazakh director Shaken Aimanov (2019), Soviet cameramen who became directors (2016), football in Russian cinema (2020), and martial arts in Kazakh cinema (2022). Rollberg’s books include The Modern Encyclopedia of East Slavic, Baltic, and Central Asian Literatures, vol. 10 (1996); And Meaning for a Life Entire. Festschrift for Charles A. Moser on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (1998); Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema (2008; second, expanded edition 2016); Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World: Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism, edited with Marlene Laruelle (2018); and The Cinema of Soviet Kazakhstan 1925-1991: An Uneasy Legacy (2021).

Rollberg won the Morton A. Bender Teaching Award in 1999 and the Oscar and Shoshanna Trachtenberg Award for Teaching in 2001.

Recent Publications

2023    “Martial arts in the Cinema of Kazakhstan.” Kinokultura (March) .

2021    The Cinema of Soviet Kazakhstan 1925-1991. An Uneasy Legacy. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books, 455 pp.

2021    “Football, Film, and the Russian State: An Unorthodox Alliance.” In Arnold, Richard (ed.), Russian and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 138-153.

2019    “Rascals, Misfits, Patriots: Youth in Kazakhstani Cinema.” In Marlene Laruelle (ed.), The Nazarbaeyv Generation. Lanham et al.: Lexington Books, 2019, pp. 191-212.

2016    “Revenge of the Cameramen: Soviet Cinematographers in the Director’s Chair.” In Birgit Beumers (ed.), A Companion to Russian Cinema. Chichester, Malden: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 364-388.