Dr Claire Shaw

Lecturer

(BA 2005, MA 2006, PhD 2011) graduated in Modern and Medieval Languages (Russian and French) from the University of Cambridge in 2005, then moved to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, to take an MA and PhD in Russian and Soviet history.  In 2009 she became a Junior Research Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research in London.  She joined the Department in September 2011.

Her main research interests are the history of the Soviet Union, particularly the formation of Soviet identity and the history of marginal groups. Her current research project examines the history of the deaf community in Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1991, focusing on the impact of deafness on Soviet programmes of identity, and examining how Soviet deaf individuals developed their sense of individual and collective selfhood. She also writes on contemporary Russian fashion and Soviet public space, and has recently published an article on Gorky Park in the early Soviet period.

Her undergraduate teaching includes the year two unit ‘The New Soviet Man and his “Others”: Politics and Identity in Soviet Russia, 1917-1945’ and the year four unit ‘The Cold War at Home: Soviet Society 1945-1991’, as well as contributions to the first year unit ‘Introduction to Russian History and Culture’. She also contributes to the Department’s language teaching at all levels.