Brendan Mooney

Education

• 2019 - Ph.D. - University of South Carolina, Comparative Literature
  • Dissertation Title: "Between Holy Russia and a Monkey: Darwin's Russian Literary and Philosophical Critics"
• 2018 - M.A. - Middlebury Language School, Russian
  • Thesis Title: "Pobeda Klimenta Timiriazeva kak perevodchika Darvina"
• 2015 - M.A. - University of South Carolina, Comparative Literature
  • Thesis Title: "Making the Irrational Rational: Nietzsche and the Problem of Knowledge in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita." 
• 2012 - B.A. - University of South Carolina, French and Russian, cum laude

Teaching and Research Interests

• Darwinism 

Courses Taught

• RUS 101: Beginner's Russian
• RUS 102: Beginner's Russian
• RUS 137: Russian Folklore
• RUS 201: Intermediate Russian
• RUS 202: Intermediate Russian
• RUS 255: Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in English Translation 
• RUS 256: Russian Literature: Tolstoy to Nabokov

Selected Publications and Presentations

Books

• Between Holy Russia and a Monkey (work in progress)
• "Of Bulldogs, Barren Virgins, and Forms Most Beautiful: Kliment Timiriazev's Legacy as a Darwinist Translator." (work in progress)

Articles

• Article on the history of the translation of Darwin's "natural selection" into Russian (work in progress)

Presentations

• "Dmitrii Pisarev's Economy of Nature: the Unexpected Evolution of a Darwinist." Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, Greenville, SC, March 2020. (Proposal submitted)
• Roundtable participant on "Darwin's Reception in Russian." Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, San Francisco, CA, November 2019.
• "Evoliutsiia: The Phylogeny of a Word in Russian." Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, Mobile, AL, March 2019.
• "Vladimir Soloviev: The Incompatibility of Darwinian Evolution with Aesthetics in Late Nineteenth-century Russian Religious Philosophy." Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion/The American Academy of Religion, Greenville, NC, March 2019.
• "Degeneration: The Evolution of a Term." Cultural Carolina Graduate Student Conference, Columbia, SC, March 2019.
• "Strakhov on Darwinism: Progress, Chance, and Mechanism." Association for Slavic, Eat European, and Eurasian Studies, Boston, MA, December 2018.
• "[Kliment A. Timiriazev's Victory as One of Charles Darwin's Translators] Pobeda Klimenta Timiriazeva kak perevodchika Darvina." Middlebury Language School, Russian School's Graduate Student Symposium, August 2018.
• "Strakhov the Naturalist Cons Then Contras Darwin." Souther Conference on Slavic Studies, Charlotte, NC, March 2018.
• "A Translator's Dilemma: Translating Darwin's 'Natural Selection' into Russian." Cultural Carolina Graduate Student Conference, Columbia, SC, March 2018.

Selected Grants and Awards

• Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Resource Development Grant, University of South Carolina, 2019

Languages

• English (native)
• French (near-native)
• Portuguese (reading knowledge)
• Russian (near-native)