About

Dina Khapaeva is a Professor of Russian and the Director of the Russian Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is also the Director of the Russian Program, with her office located in room 317 Swann. Her research focus, background, and key contributions are not detailed on the provided page. The page primarily lists her role and contact information, without additional biographical or research content.

Research topics

• History
• Art
• Political science
• Psychology
• Sociology

Selected publications

• A response to Caryl Emerson’s article “Philosophy as novelistic in the work of two old friends: Mikhail Epstein and Vladimir Sharov”

  Studies in East European Thought · 2025-09-11 · 1 citations

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• Make Russia Medieval Again! How Putin is seeking to remold society, with a little help from Ivan the Terrible

  2025-04-22

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• Political Neomedievalism, the Memory of the Perpetrators, and Mobmemory

  2023-09-14

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• Post-Soviet Historians and Religious Activists on the Medieval Oprichnina

  2023-09-14

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• Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic. By Katherine Bowers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xvi, 264 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00, hard bound.

  Slavic Review · 2023-01-01

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  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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• Putin's Neomedieval Politics of History

  2023-09-14

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• Index

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-04-24

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  Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present.

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• Trendy Monsters: The Nazis, the Perpetrator Turn, and Popular Culture

  New German Critique · 2021-11-01 · 3 citations

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  “The ancient gigantic cannibal near-man flourishing now, ruling the world once more. We spent a million years escaping him, Frink thought, and now he’s back. And not merely as the adversary . . . but as the master.”1 This comparison of Nazis (“near-men”) and cannibals from The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick (1962), is voiced by the novel’s protagonist, Frank Frink, a Jewish artist in hiding. In this alternate-universe novel, the Axis powers won World War II. In the 1960s equating someone with a cannibal was intended as an extreme denunciation; it did not evoke the Hannibal Lecter portrayed by movie heartthrob Mads Mikkelsen. Nor were the Nazi perpetrators rendered as “sympathetic” family men by stars such as Rufus Sewell, as in the recent TV adaptation of Dick’s novel. Clearly, important changes in the representation of the Nazis and cannibals have occurred in popular culture between the 1960s and the present.In this article I compare how popular culture portrays Nazis and homicidal monsters, such as vampires, cannibals, and serial killers, and argue that their images have evolved in parallel and interconnected ways. Over the past three decades, fictional monsters have transitioned from aberrant criminals to cultural idols, and their humanized forms have influenced the trajectory of the images of Nazis. I suggest that this evolution aligns with broader trends in how popular culture depicts violence against people. An emergent tendency in memory studies and Holocaust studies, the perpetrator turn—which designates a shift of attention from the victims’ perspective to the perpetrators’ perspective—finds parallels in these changing attitudes to monsters and the Nazis in popular culture. The perpetrator turn may be seen as an example of the mutual influences and interactions between popular culture and academic discourse. Indeed, can the rise of the “sympathetic Nazi” as a popular protagonist and the “lively intellectual engagement with perpetrators” be viewed as unrelated phenomena?2 I further argue that the fixation on “empathy” with, and “humanization” of, the perpetrators that has come about in fiction, movies, and scholarship is rooted in an ideological shift in the attitudes to humans. I link this shift to the role that the radical critique of humanism and the rejection of anthropocentrism have played, since the 1990s, in academe and popular culture. Finally, I contest the view that fascism is still universally envisaged in movies and novels as an absolute evil or the incarnation of “a dangerous enemy.” On the contrary, the extraordinary popularity of Nazi characters in early 2000s fiction and cinema, which made one critic title his article “Nazis, Nazis Everywhere,”3 may suggest that the Nazis are invading again—but this time, in popular culture. I do not imply, though, that the traditional ways in which Nazism has been represented have completely disappeared.4 But what interests me here is what the new modes of “engagement” with the Nazi perpetrators and with fictional monsters reveal about the current cultural situation. I also address the reception of these images, because audience expectations play an important role in shaping fictional identities._________To highlight the differences in the representations of Nazis in the 1960s and today, I compare Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle and the Emmy Award–winning TV series of the same name (Amazon Studios, 2015–19), which was at one time rated the “most popular digital series in the US.”5 No reader of The Man in the High Castle is left wondering whether any aspects of Nazism and individual Nazis qualify as having any merit. The only sympathetically portrayed Nazi in the novel is an antifascist, Captain Rudolf Wegener, who acts against the Nazi state. Wegener condemns the Nazi world order in unequivocal terms—“The madmen are in power”—and thinks that Nazism is “evil beyond compare.”6 In the novel, Wegener saves the world from the Nazis’ nuclear apocalypse. The novel’s main antihero is a zealous Nazi, Joe Cinnadella. Juliana, the novel’s protagonist, who revolts against Nazism, calls Joe “a Gestapo assassin” and kills him to protect a dissident writer. This novel belongs to what Gavriel Rosenfeld terms “the era of moralism” in representations of the Nazi past, which he defines as a “continued aura of moralism surrounding a given historical era that helps to define its ‘abnormality.’”7 According to Rosenfeld, “The waning of a moralistic perspective towards the past, by extension, is a crucial component of the larger process of normalization.”8The TV series radically challenges this “moralistic perspective” by altering the disposition of characters. Wegener (Carsten Norgaard) remains an antifascist, but he becomes a secondary incarnation from the novel in important he not the and he not On the contrary, in the of the Wegener the to the is portrayed as a and who Wegener to of with the from the novel, the TV series three new his and Joe who The of the and to these new characters the reception and its expectations of images of the Nazis. that the Nazis are represented as “sympathetic” and not that the that is represented as “the and “a with and he is portrayed as a family by the is by the of his which this the Nazi and the family to protect his In to Nazi its and against with is as a and also has a and a Nazi The is humanized by “a family in which the The the audience in the of this Nazi as the of the is the of the Nazi and also as a he has about Nazi and he his he the and of the Nazi state. The this to Dick’s of Joe by him in with who his of the and of the and are to the the “The of the is not the one in which is with but the one in which a Nazi family about their In the in which and are is these of Nazi perpetrators and as the The Man in the High Castle was still not and in the engagement with Nazi characters. But this is an to the Juliana, a of the with the The with the that this is the only the the nuclear the world is by his family and the and to his According to one the was the was to how he have been a in but been only to with Nazis in the of the are in their to on his in a Nazi This calls to of the of the Nazi “The of fascism . . . to by or are as and in their from the Nazis are and by the of the and to to their The novel of the . . . are and not a in the of the the novel, the series has that and more. the images that its audience were the and the of not that the series were by Nazi But to be in the current world of their on the of a of protagonist and on the representations of perpetrators and monsters in popular culture. Indeed, the and Joe do not in the are the of a of Nazi characters that at the turn of the This of is by novel which “the era of the the and early a of historical movies and novels and Nazi as a family and as a artist or an The early 2000s an of at of his The of on his early the movie depicts a artist who his as a and a movies, such as and The about his and his may to with his as a these from their which a from Rosenfeld that “most to the turn of the a by have a and as a who can be in historical In the these have and to the of the Nazi Rosenfeld the of this to the early “a of cultural . . . their from the Nazi towards an in its and a in its of and the of this to the of a broader cultural by the of the Nazis a larger of representations of violence in popular culture and the changing attitudes to cannibals, and serial a Nazi perpetrator a novel’s main was by or The of the The is in from the of a The is his which is of the by in his The novel is by as an to the against the that on the Holocaust is his novel as an to the memory of the Holocaust is not as a the novel because of to have a Nazi perpetrator as his one critic the novel as he of in the that he is a Nazi that has . . . which are not to he from on the . . . with what I is a The or and are he and he the to it a of this his novel to his a “The reader has to do the because these are as but also in such a I is a of and an and in the it is . . . but the the reader has to do The of in this novel are not are to of the Nazis’ in of of violence in was by one of the of the In the a to novel, the of that be in by and culture. that violence be in the of and in the . . . a of the as as . . . And is be by the 1990s, any of in of violence only to which by been to the same as the of popular by in the of Nazis was by in his novel The in The is the of a with past as an is and and is of do not on as a is to three and is it with because is to and In is as a of and is given early to the of one of who and in the This with an of and is further by the that to a that No how this may not the reader or the it an to have here is a “sympathetic as a protagonist of a new of this novel is that the Nazi perpetrator what was the that one not and not be by a the the the of the historical the this novel to the and of in a comparison of the of the in the and that of the perpetrator . . . the of the perpetrator novel, to the an with the perpetrator that to “the of cultural and is a with a made by such a of to the representation of fascism and the fascism of representations made in the early 2000s to a Nazi the perpetrator turn in fiction its only in In the of one this novel “the of the perpetrators’ Indeed, with the perpetrator on a new the novel’s is a Nazi, an who in in in his his in the at to about the of and This the new by an Nazi perpetrator a with the reader is to and of the novel were the of and the of which to its and its against who or in one of the of the novel, that is that of is a and that the novel a in which the reader is to play the role of the that of the and that of his that novel the of the perpetrator by the of the and by main is that “a of because the reader is the Nazis of the in their and are to that are In of one critic who that not a but merely “a who his the novel to to the of in which the how he “a but by it a This a of the Nazi his this of and as of and that is to the in these who of Indeed, the and in reveal that this Nazi about his of such a novel of is . . . a of how attitudes the Holocaust have in the in the In the novel’s reception in the was a from its with the who the of the and the the novel because the of the Nazi perpetrator is as of any and it a in the novel According to “The of is by not The of the is what the reader is to are because that in order to the the one to the of the not that of by I not by the of This is a This to with the Holocaust perpetrator as he his was not only by the but also by the of the perpetrator turn in because the novel the of “a the as a protagonist of a new because he is a and an a and a a of and the not at a the was to that the perpetrator was an the is to that the perpetrator is a as he is in is by the novel as a cultural because that he with his that this a but I have this protagonist is not that from I on one and he is on In the the of this the Nazi perpetrator “a by an he with as a in terms that he and with his new it in to an Gestapo as a is not an his his and cultural and his monsters who and cannibals, though, not his victims’ or The of these monsters in the and in its current Hannibal a cannibal by in the TV series Hannibal the comparison of Nazi” and and the evolution of the “sympathetic” Nazi perpetrator and that of the “sympathetic” cannibal has the same and the same The in the trajectory of these images becomes in The is Hannibal a serial and a in the novel The of the and in the movie of the same name on one and the Hannibal Lecter of the TV on the In the the changes in these of by decades, be against of the Nazi in Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle and the TV series of the same name the Lecter has a and an these still of him as an of the Lecter is an In the novel and the he is as a and his is as a In the novel not him as or he and In the movie Lecter is portrayed not by a but by a the Lecter of the that is from any The between intellectual and cultural and his has made him a and Lecter is a with and beyond and a a of and violence and are not to in the on the contrary, are to to his and of with is of a TV series an it was as and “the by the and the The of was by million in the of and critic of evolution of Hannibal as a and the one example of how the of the cannibal and serial evolved in popular culture a from a to a The culture and the the this with the in equating to of been as a by the as an cultural shift from to and humanized protagonist by Hannibal Lecter the of images of Nazis between Dick’s Man in the High Castle and the TV in popular representations of homicidal monsters from to which I in The of in was by the the popular of studies have in the and early the images of the cannibal and the serial with that of the may be to in with the but this new of homicidal monsters as did not popular culture on an the The of novels and from the novel to the was that not vampires, were the of the were as and the to was by and audience a In were of as the and But since the 1990s, in a from the have the audience to with the and are and have and and In are and and it is not that are which is characters in these as of these movies and to the example of this is the in which the of culture are to vampires, who have the and of This is not to that the traditional has completely from the it is still in movies and fiction but has been by this current of the representations of as the series a that do not or are their on that on are and or between and are and of this shift in popular representations not be the time in are represented as not as and monsters but as of a The of in popular culture is on the attitudes that these The to of and as a new monsters in the of this of the this shift in cultural from an to a In movies and fiction, vampires, serial killers, and cannibals a rejection of and the of and this rejection of the This of the has been by who as or of or have been the to the of evolution in the of the and “sympathetic” Nazis The of the Nazis as the evil was the “humanization” of the Nazis in popular culture and the perpetrator as a protagonist the audience was to and their also the of Nazis as vampires, and to it to the Nazis to the of The as the perpetrators of have an fictional on the serial killers, are to historical vampires, have a their may only have their and Nazis have in is their of important cultural is to humanism and the of This tendency in the representations of the Nazis is by to the current trends in memory Nazis and monsters at a reception from their to the of the of the of the of Hannibal the TV or any that to is that of a In the novel from an of thinks of as a In of that his I did was a This helps this perpetrator of his In by a parallel between the of his protagonist to historical and the of who a of this perpetrator a and an of historical between this novel about the Holocaust and movies has been by the novel and is a and his his a a with of of and to the serial from the novel by and Frank that Holocaust movies the and of the to the have from criminals of and given that the since the been by the and has been on the of and I link this to the radical critique of humanism and the rejection of anthropocentrism that has made the of cultural this article with the of the critique of humanism in the of the in any the with of which humanism was a was its This was by of of thought, by the in its critique of the of the which to the of the the was that is in the the is that is The to the of humanism from its by by Nazi and by who may have only the of its in an this to what a moralistic of were in the was a were was a . . . This not but to that at that time I in the terms of that the of humanism was by the critique of in which and was in their the of the and the of of and culture humanism was also to their against their intellectual on the intellectual to of humanism is by who in of the of the a between and the of the is of But since it is in the of and it the of its . . . I have at its is a of and In the of the of on a the of may have been as a to this with of has in of its who with radical from the of the of to “the of the from to as the to This rejection of anthropocentrism the and attention monsters at the of this was a that to traditional humanism and to humans. the of the of that and a between and in the of evolution and the between the The of the in anthropocentrism since The of has been viewed as a to in the was further by and who the as a who between and and be as a of the of the of the of the to the be seen as a of the of violence and against or the who can with a to that its According to were any but their the the This was the and the culture the of the and made a from it by the homicidal as the The its in the as a a of and a against the early the of has from academe popular culture. popular culture not in an intellectual by and by it to in its it their depicts this of with to “The of of of the cultural such as the and the cinema, the of its or its intellectual in completely the of its as its the critique of humanism was by popular culture in the early 1990s, it its The radical rejection of anthropocentrism and of the of the to monsters was to what was as against characters that the and the perpetrators to an state. The of violence by monsters on characters a that homicidal monsters as a new cultural the but the cannibal and the serial the the in popular as the and are to the fictional and with with their The of the of the has been in the changing representations of the in the of to what Rosenfeld as the of which he to the process of of the Nazi of early to Nazism, Rosenfeld that “the of the Nazi era to a to the world of the perpetrators and a to the of the that a or may a and and be of has a in the has the a shift in the of monsters in academic and made a of vampires, monsters, cultural studies because did not have to be evil that are a an of monsters on their monsters, a of the In the such as and and were in these have been by “The Nazi not only an example of the of the of the but also the trajectory that the Nazis’ has in popular cultural studies to monsters in the scholarship on the Nazi to the of by the perpetrator I suggest that the may this in be as of the cultural According to its the perpetrator turn and by an to the The to the Nazi perpetrator in the of the is of this that the on the historical by the perspective of the and that of the the and a of perpetrators and has as in Holocaust studies as it is in cultural argue that is the perpetrator from this of that to to of the perpetrator is to that may be as to by the that perpetrators of extraordinary evil as that have scholarship of the of to the which and perpetrators as by historical influenced by a to to the perpetrators’ because he with the to the of are to the of the perpetrators and may to in the which can in to from of The of a role in attention the perpetrators and from their this article the about the of the of in memory studies and Holocaust studies, the of to historical the to this that on such as and and the between and only the historical of the Nazi but also the of and a of the perpetrator turn the recent turn in fiction as “the the of an or at an to the with the of the the reader in a process to and and to what have been as evil are This can the “The be from the On the contrary, evil with the perpetrator in a in popular representations of the Nazis is by the of the perpetrator who on the of the Nazis as of their and recent and have their attention to of the of Nazi Nazis portrayed as not . . . Nazis as secondary in on but Nazis as of their the can be to be the of his or of the perpetrator turn that popular criminals by and by on the of may and may the of the with the Nazi perpetrator who is the of the may the audience with a in This of a can as a in in “the of the protagonist are to the and by the time are the reader has which is to a of in the of the perpetrator turn the view that ideological with Holocaust perpetrators only as a dangerous but and not as a the According to the that “the reader with the perspective of the can be because “a reader with the and of the be to an that “a the Nazi perpetrator in in and the and the of is it has been since the of this that with Nazis have a that their in the same as about in the the that popular culture monsters, who the same cultural in recent decades, of representations of Nazis as can the of Nazis as a on the contrary, can only in their to a audience of vampires, cannibals, and serial The that “the reader by the by the is to by Nazi in the current This a by that the on the perpetrators may be not by a but by a with the of of the perpetrator which the representations of the Nazis and an to as an important cultural from that of who the The of a in the was by to reveal In an of is a with which and the of and “the to which were their to of as an was crucial in about the historical of the who and their in the of the of of the as “a with with between and of which in his was from the one that perpetrator The same be of which from a completely and cultural in the of and of the of the the of may be may be to suggest that are differences of between the and the perpetrators of the Nazi and that the perpetrators are to be and with to is a rejection of the “moralistic of in the representations of the Nazi has in “a of to the that as as Rosenfeld that it of beyond which the Nazi past be any the with the of The Man in the High Castle on in a on have The Nazis have monsters, as popular and as the the of this new in representations of the to in any of the culture on the the and of the turn perpetrators in popular culture and the perpetrator turn in may be also in the of the current of the culture of which at the of historical and of The memory of the Holocaust was to that The culture of in with the of in the 1960s and This was in the by a which the as a between that with with and of the popular culture and to about the to the of the Indeed, Holocaust as the novel about is or it not a the “a is a who has this it as “the recent of to This in to the Holocaust parallels in the of violence and of as a with the humanized Nazis by the perpetrator turn as a to can only the with violence and in popular is to the to perpetrators’ and In the in studies, which is by attention to has of But and becomes the of a of fiction or an that has studies to the perpetrators are the beyond which or is or any to the of Nazis their is not only but also one to this the of the I do not and it not me to whether in a but I do that I was a and I was not a I that the not only in and still or on and that to with their is a or an or a of it is rendered or to the of

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• Killing humanity

  2020-07-30

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  In this chapter, I examine the differences in the representations of the end of humankind in secular apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies, with a special focus on the ones produced in 2018 and 2019. Analysing these movies through the lens of anthropocentrism, I argue that they fall into two categories that may be called the human-centred paradigm and the antihuman paradigm. This classification reveals the dynamics that have driven the transformations of the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic genres over the past decades. I argue that contemporary movies, as well as computer games and fiction, mark an unprecedented way of envisioning death of humanity. I suggest that the fixation on apocalypse is written into a broad cultural and intellectual context of the development of popular culture and could be explained only in so far as this broader context is taken into consideration. As with so many other manifestations of thanatopathia, namely, a complex cultural and social movement that questions the very significance of humanity’s existence, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies belonging to the antihuman paradigm voice the growing contempt for humanity. By making death ‘spectacular’, they prompt millions to consider the ultimate end of humanity a trendy commodity and a popular entertainment.

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• The Gothic Future of Eurasia

  Russian Literature · 2019-05-01 · 6 citations

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Frequent coauthors

• Carol Senf

  26 shared

• Paul Freedman

  25 shared

• Jacque Lynn Foltyn

  25 shared

• Sami Pihlström

  25 shared

• Hardy Dickens

  Yale University

  25 shared

• Kelly Doyle

  ARUP Laboratories (United States)

  25 shared

• Svetlana Tcareva

  Kwantlen Polytechnic University

  25 shared

• Mark Bassin

  Uppsala University

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of St…
• Visiting Scholar, Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultu…
• Invited Professorship, Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences…
• Dean’s Distinguished Researcher Award, Ivan Allen College of…
• Fellowship, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2009-20…