Russian Faculty

My specialty is nineteenth-century Russian literature and theater. I love digging into such staples of Russian literature as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, and Chekhov. I also teach advanced Russian language courses and a variety of courses on Russian culture in translation: Russian Folktale, Slavic Science Fiction, Women and Gender in Russian Culture, and others.

At Lawrence University Irina Potapova teaches second year Russian language sequence, Russian TV Talk - a conversation-based course for Russian enthusiasts, Russian Animated Film (in English), and First Year Studies. Irina's interest to teach Russian as a foreign languages sparked during her Fulbright experience at Juniata College, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a visiting Russian language instructor in 2014-2015. Irina's sphere of interest expanded to the fields of Slavic Folklore, Women Studies and Film Analysis as she worked on her master thesis on Slavic merfolk at the University of Arizona. Currently Irina is excited to share knowledge of Soviet and Russian culture, and core sociopolitical events on the territory of Soviet Union and present-day Russia through the lens of Soviet Animation.