Fellows » Current Fellows » IHUM Fellow: Natalya Sukhonos, PhD
Natalya Sukhonos hails from Odessa, Ukraine, but also calls New York City her second home. She has also lived in Madrid, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro. Natalya just finished her dissertation at Harvard University's Comparative Literature Program on "Aesthetic Constructs and the Work of Play in Russian and Latin American Literature", with an emphasis on Borges, Pelevin, and Lispector. Her article on "Borges and the Humanism of Play" is coming out in the volume Comedy (Edwin Mellon Press, Ltd) in 2010. Natalya is very interested in the way that play (in life and aesthetics alike) leads us to see our most basic ideas and beliefs and constructed, but also allows us to take pleasure in those constructs, which we can manipulate at will. Like Freud's creative writer, we all behave like a child at play when we rearrange the puzzle pieces of the world in artistic practice. Natalya's next research project will be an exploration of linguistic creativity in contemporary Russian and Latino novels. Creativity implies a multiperspectival vision of the world, and a playful eye towards the voices and identities of others helps us view literature as a humanistic endeavor.
Natalya is very excited to move to San Francisco from Boston and live on the West Coast. She loves to travel, write poetry, and learn about local and international artistic traditions.