About

Olga Lyanda-Geller is an assistant professor of Russian, Jewish Studies, and comparative literature at Purdue University. She holds graduate degrees in philosophy and philology, including a Ph.D. from Purdue University, a Candidate of Science from Samara University in Russia, and a D.E.A. in Philosophy from Universite Sorbonne-Paris IV in France. Her research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the nature of language from both linguistic and philosophical perspectives. She investigates concepts such as the 'lekton' in Stoic doctrine, 'inner form' and symbolism in the German tradition, and Russian thought, exploring various aspects of meaning, expression, and the formation of new concepts in language. Her current projects include research in cross-disciplinary language and engineering education, classical and modern Russian and comparative literature, Jewish studies, and philosophy of music. Olga has taught a variety of courses on philosophy, Russian language, literature, culture, Jewish studies, and French in both Russian and US universities. She is the author of innovative interdisciplinary courses, including Russian for Engineers and Scientists and Russian for Rocket Scientists. She has received numerous teaching awards, including the Purdue University 2020 Excellence in Instruction Award for Lecturers.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Political Science
• Art
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Literature
• Linguistics
• Epistemology
• History
• Law
• Classics
• Theology

Selected publications

• Dialogue in Sofia Gubaidulina’s Film Music

  2026-04-13

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  The preeminent Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025) was one of the brightest and most original figures in modern musical thought. In Gubaidulina’s work, there is an unbreakable union of Western and Eastern spirituality. She organically synthesized different cultures in her work, understanding religion in its original sense of re-ligare, or a rebuilding of the connection between life and the absolute. A philosopher whose language was music, Gubaidulina was particularly interested in dialogue in its diverse forms. After many years of persecution and oblivion in the Soviet Union, Gubaidulina gained wide recognition in the late twentieth century, and her compositions are now performed all over the world. Of the many perspectives offered by Gubaidulina’s rich musical thought, the dialogism and attention to contrasts and antinomies form the centerpiece of her musical compositions, regardless of genre. This antithetical principle and the search for an organic synthesis of contrasts permeate the fabric of the composer’s work, on both physical and metaphysical levels. This chapter focuses on dialogue in a less-researched part of Gubaidulina’s work—film music—and examines dialogism and symbolism as the main constituents of her philosophy of music, paying special attention to the symbols of the cross, steps, and the clock.

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• ARTS OF CREATIVE COMMUNICATION

  2025-01-01

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• Rethinking The Philosophers’ Steamboat: the tragedy of Sergei Bulgakov

  Studies in East European Thought · 2023

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  • Sociology
  • Social Science
  • Political Science
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• <i>Outside the Earth</i>: Translating and Exploring with Tsiolkovsky

  Russian language journal · 2022

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  • Linguistics
  • Philosophy

  This article describes a study that grew out of research and translation work completed within the framework of a series of innovative interdisciplinary courses called “Russian for Rockets.” While there are currently no language study requirements in most science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, there is a high demand among STEM majors in U.S. universities for language courses with a strong technical component. In particular, a poll at the Purdue School of Aeronautics and Astronautics conducted in 2018 showed that over 90% of respondents were interested in taking a course in technical Russian.1 This finding resulted in the development of unique language courses in the Russian Program at Purdue University that explore science and engineering from linguistic and cultural perspectives. These courses target students with different levels of proficiency in Russian (from elementary through intermediate to advanced) and with various majors, interests, and backgrounds. The courses are part of the Purdue School of Languages and Cultures LSP (Languages for Specific Purposes) initiative, in which we address the needs of a versatile community of students in our language classes focusing on their specialized professional areas.

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• Conversations with Socrates: The Image of Socrates in Russian and Soviet Philosophical Literature

  BRILL eBooks · 2022

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  • Philosophy
  • Literature
  • Art

  In 1888–1898, Aleksei Kozlov, a Russian philosopher and writer, publishes his main work, “Conversations with a Petersburg’s Socrates,” under the pen name Platon Kaluzhsky. The main character, nicknamed Socrates from Peski, engages the thinkers of St. Petersburg, both real and fictional, in philosophical dialogue. A century later, Edvard Radzinsky, a writer and historian, composes his Conversations with Socrates—and is accused of disguising Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, as well as Andrei Siniavsky and Yuly Daniel, under the mask of Socrates, whom Radzinsky regards as a personalized symbol of philosophy, thinking, and doubt. I explore the philosophical dialogue in Russian literary and intellectual thought inspired by Socrates—a philosopher, a historical and literary hero, and, above all, a human being whose ethical and intellectual merits still urge people to set up the highest moral standards. A sage or a prophet, Socrates is addressed as an ideal interlocutor, a dialogue with whom has been much needed in prerevolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. Since the times of Socrates, whom Aleksei Losev believed to be one of the most mysterious phenomena in classical antiquity, Socrates’ biographers have been trying to solve this mystery, aiming not only at reconstructing Socrates’ thought but also recreating his persona. This chapter considers the figure of Socrates as he reappears in original philosophical and literary biographies, including those of Aleksei Losev, Valentin Asmus, Feokhary Kessidi, and Vladik Nersesiants, and focuses on the image of Socrates as the central character of Kozlov and Radzinsky’s Conversations.

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• Philosophical Thought in Russia in The Second Half of The Twentieth Century. A Contemporary View from Russia and Abroad. Ed. Vladislav A. Lektorsky and Marina F. Bykova. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. xii, 440 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $176.00, hard bound.

  Slavic Review · 2021-01-01

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  Philosophical Thought in Russia in The Second Half of The Twentieth Century. A Contemporary View from Russia and Abroad. Ed. Vladislav A. Lektorsky and Marina F. Bykova. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. xii, 440 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $176.00, hard bound. - Volume 80 Issue 1

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• Hegel’s Symbol and Symbolic Art: Revisiting Ambiguity?

  2020-05-02

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• FROM LANGUAGE TO WORD-CONCEPT: GUSTAV SHPET'S VARIATIONS ON INNER FORM

  The Slavic and East European Journal · 2018-01-01

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• Masha and Bear(s): A Russian Palimpsest

  FOLKLORICA - Journal of the Slavic East European and Eurasian Folklore Association · 2016-04-14 · 2 citations

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  When stories are scraped clean and re-written, how much of the original shines through later tales? This paper offers a palimpsest analysis (palímpsestos, “scratched/scraped again”) of the story Masha and the Bear based on a Russian folktale, Tolstoy’s tale The Three Bears, and the transformed folk world in the contemporary cartoon series Masha and the Bear. A palimpsest analysis of a text reveals different layers of readers’, listeners’, and viewers’ expectations, allowing them to challenge the story. Bringing together different versions of a tale with seemingly very similar characters and plot lines, where each subsequent story is regarded as a palimpsest, adds new features to each story’s interpretation. Considering the tale of Masha and the Bear, told differently in Russian folklore, literary tradition and modern media, demonstrates juxtaposition of textual layers that produces a variety of effects, from tragic to comic.

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• NO ONE DOES WRONG WILLINGLY - L. Monteils-Laeng Agir sans vouloir. Le problème de l'intellectualisme moral dans la philosophie ancienne. (Les Anciens et les Modernes – Études de Philosophie 15.) Pp. 549. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014. Paper, €39. ISBN: 978-2-8124-3161-6.

  The Classical Review · 2015-11-17

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  NO ONE DOES WRONG WILLINGLY - L. Monteils-Laeng Agir sans vouloir. Le problème de l'intellectualisme moral dans la philosophie ancienne. (Les Anciens et les Modernes – Études de Philosophie 15.) Pp. 549. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014. Paper, €39. ISBN: 978-2-8124-3161-6. - Volume 66 Issue 1

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Frequent coauthors

• Michael Pilipchuk

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Purdue University 2020 Excellence in Instruction Award for L…