Anna Toropova

• Presentation
• CV
• Research outputs

Primary fields of research

My work focuses on the cultural and medical history of Russia and the Soviet Union. I am interested in the role played by cinema in the transformation of the human subject, and in the ways that Soviet political and cultural agendas overlapped with the psy disciplines. 

My monograph on film as a technology of emotional education during the Stalin era, titled Feeling Revolution: Cinema, Genre and the Politics of Affect under Stalin, was published in 2020. Reading Stalin-era cinema as a ‘laboratory’ of emotional revolution, the book brings to light film’s vital role in cultivating the distinctive emotional values and norms of the Stalin era, ranging from happiness and victorious laughter to hatred for enemies.

I am the co-author (with Claire Shaw) of Technologies of Mind and Body, an edited volume that examines techniques of psycho-physiological transformation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc.

Current research

I am currently writing a book on the intersection of medical knowledge, cinematic technology, and revolutionary campaigns of psycho-physiological reforging in early Soviet Union. I am also conducting a new project that explores the history of scientific and cultural engagements with the topic of traumatic neurosis in the Soviet Union.