Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky

Professor Chernetsky joined the Slavic Department at KU in Fall 2013.

A native of Odesa, Ukraine, Professor Chernetsky completed his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to the University of Kansas, he taught at Columbia University and at Miami University in Ohio. His research focuses on modern and contemporary cultures (literature, film, popular culture) of Ukraine, Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, considered in a broader comparative/cross-regional and interdisciplinary contexts. He has also been researching globalization and its cultural aspects, postmodernism/postmodernity, Modernism/modernity, postcolonial theory & writing, questions of identity & community, diasporic cultures, nationalism & ethnicity, and broader issues in literary & cultural theory, cultural studies, film studies, feminist theory, gender and queer studies, and translation studies.

Chernetsky is the author of the book Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization (2007), of five edited or co-edited volumes, and numerous articles and reviews. A book in Ukrainian, Intersections and Breakthroughs: Ukrainian Literature and Cinema between the Global and the Local,is forthcoming. His published translations from Ukrainian and Russian into English include two novels, two poetry collections, and numerous shorter literary works, as well as scholarly articles and historical documents.

Vitaly Chernetsky served as Director of the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at the University of Kansas in 2015-2020. He is a past president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (2009-2018) and the current First Vice President of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US. He has served on multiple prize juries and expert review panels and is on the editorial and advisory boards of several journals. He is the editor of the Ukrainian Studies book series at Academic Studies Press.

In 2024, Prof. Chernetsky is serving as the President of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).