Very brief note. I’ve spent the day being down about the spread of the Omicron variant and about this morning’s painfully low temperatures, which kept me from going outside at all, and also about a sinus infection, so I didn’t do what I’d intended to do today at all, and this is a minimal substitute.
Going through the Stanford Humanities Center annual report for 2020-21 (a year in which all events were virtual — nothing face-to-face at all, not Fellows’ weekly presentations, not lunches, not the eminent visitors, no random encounters in the building, none of that) and looking at the Fellows’ photos and brief identifications, I turned a page and came on a face that instantly grabbed my attention. And I thought: Nice guy. Gay guy.
And so he was. There were no doubt other queerfolk in the set, but this one just called out to me. I have no idea what things I was picking up on. Here’s his photo and thumbnail i.d. from the SHC:
I swear that I have never seen him before. I suppose the question to ask about the photo is: Queer or just Gen Z? (He’s certainly Gen Z. Also English.)
His education:
PhD, Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge (2014-2018)
MPhil, Russian Studies, University of Cambridge (2012-2013)
BA (Hons), Russian and German, University of Cambridge (2008-2012)
From the Stanford department’s site:
Nick’s work explores gender, sexuality and queerness in Russia and Ukraine from a cultural studies perspective. He is particularly interested in exploring queer approaches to cultural traditions usually deemed conservative and heteronormative. Recently, Nick has been preparing his first monograph for publication, entitled “Queer Orthodox Culture in Early Modern Russia”.
He now has a lectureship at Oxford.
Leave a Reply