Dr Katya Krylova

Biography

Katya Krylova is Senior Lecturer in German, Film and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen and joined the university in 2018. She was Undergraduate Programme Coordinator for Film and Visual Culture from January 2022 until September 2023.

She studied German and Italian at Churchill College, Cambridge, where she also completed an MPhil in European Literature and Culture and a PhD in German Literature (funded by the AHRC) in 2011. During her undergraduate studies she spent a year at the Humboldt University in Berlin. As part of her PhD work, she undertook the first of many subsequent research visits to Vienna. The completion of her PhD thesis saw her return to Vienna to work at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography (2010-2012). She has also held research and teaching positions in the Department of German Studies at the University of Nottingham (2012-2015, Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship), in the Department of German at King’s College London (2016), and in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham (2017). She is the author of two monographs. Her first monograph, Walking Through History: Topography and Identity in the Works of Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013), was the winner of the 2011 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in German Studies. Her second monograph, The Long Shadow of the Past: Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film, and Culture (Rochester: Camden House, 2017), was published in June 2017. This book has been widely reviewed, was included in CHOICE's 2018 Outstanding Academic Titles, and a paperback edition was published in February 2020. She is also the sole editor of the multi-authored volume New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018) and co-editor of two further volumes (Politics and Culture in Germany and Austria Today, Camden House, 2021, and Thomas Bernhard: Language, History, Subjectivity, Brill, 2023).

Prizes and Awards

• 2018, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award for my second monograph The Long Shadow of the Past: Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film, and Culture (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2017).
• 2011, Winner of Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in German Studies
• 2010, Sylvia Naish Research Student Lecture prize

Research Overview

My research is highly interdisciplinary and lies in the areas of modern and contemporary Austrian literature, film, visual culture, and memory studies. The legacy that Austria's past continues to exert on its present constitutes my principal research interest. I am the author/editor of three academic books. My first book, Walking Through History: Topography and Identity in the Works of Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013), was the winner of the 2011 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in German Studies. I was also the recipient of the 2010 Sylvia Naish Research Student Lecture prize for my doctoral work, awarded by the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London. My second book, entitled The Long Shadow of the Past: Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film, and Culture (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2017), was published in June 2017. The monograph undertakes close readings of key contemporary Austrian literary texts, films, and memorials, which treat the legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust, examining what these reveal about the evolving memory culture in contemporary Austria. The book has been widely reviewed, was included in CHOICE's 2018 Outstanding Academic Titles, and a paperback edition was published in February 2020. I am also the sole editor of the multi-authored volume, New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018), arising from an international conference on Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film and Culture (CALFAC 2015), which I organised at the University of Nottingham in April 2015. I have also co-edited two further volumes: Politics and Culture in Germany and Austria Today (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2021), and Thomas Bernhard: Language, History, Subjectivity (Leiden: Brill, 2023).

In addition to the above-mentioned books, I have published over 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and given over 40 conference/seminar papers at international and national conferences and seminars. Since 2009, I have regularly conducted archival research in Austria. I have worked with Ingeborg Bachmann's literary estate in the Austrian National Library (during my PhD work), and carried out biographical research on the Austrian modernist writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal at the University of Vienna archives (during my work at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography, Vienna, 2010-2012). During the course of my Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012-2015), I undertook two further research visits to Vienna, Austria, in order to carry out research at the Austrian National Library and the Documentation Centre for Modern Austrian Literature, and to interview writers and filmmakers.

I welcome enquiries from potential postgraduate students on topics in my areas of expertise.

Current Research

My current research project ‘Evolving Austrian Memory Culture in Literature and Film’ is concerned with depictions in contemporary Austrian literature and visual culture of Austria’s progression with regard to confronting its Nazi past. The depiction of Austrian Wehrmacht deserters in particular forms a key aspect of my work. My article, published in the Journal of Austrian Studies, on the treatment of this topic in Hanna Sukare's 2018 novel Schwedenreiter, is available open access here: https://abdn.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/unsere-mutigen-feiglinge-remembrance-of-austrian-wehrmacht-desert

Knowledge Exchange

• Director’s Cut with Ruth Beckermann, University of Aberdeen’s May Festival, 25 May 2019. Organisation of film screening of The Waldheim Waltz and Q&A with renowned Austrian documentary filmmaker Ruth Beckermann. Further to financial support provided for the event by the George Washington Wilson Centre for Art and Visual Culture, I secured additional funding for the event from the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture at the IMLR London, the Austrian Cultural Forum London, and in-kind support from the University of Aberdeen AV department. Further information is available in this University press release: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/12992/. The Q&A with Ruth Beckermann may be viewed via the University of Aberdeen YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2Oilpnk.

• As Co-Director of the George Washington Wilson Centre for Art and Visual Culture (2018-22), I was responsible for the joint running of a full programme of research and public engagement events related to visual culture.

Collaborations

Together with Dr Dora Osborne (University of St Andrews) and Dr Frauke Matthes (University of Edinburgh), I co-organised a conference on ‘The Politics of Contemporary German Culture’ at the University of St Andrews, held on 26-27 April 2019. The conference focused on the issue of how the contemporary cultural landscape in Germany and Austria is being shaped by current political concerns and to consider, through dialogue between academics and practitioners, how this affects German Studies as a discipline and a practice. Five themed panels focused on political or politicized aspects of contemporary life that have become increasingly significant for German and Austrian culture today: market forces, Europe, resurgent nationalism, memory and memorialization, and (German) language. A blog post about the conference can be viewed here. 

The conference was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council - AHRC Open World Research Initiative “Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community” at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews, the Moray Endowment Fund of The University of Edinburgh, and the University of Aberdeen.

Politics and Culture in Germany and Austria Today (vol. 14 of the Edinburgh German Yearbook), which includes chapters arising from selected papers originally presented at the conference, and which was coedited by Frauke Matthes, Dora Osborne, Katya Krylova and Myrto Aspioti, was published in 2021.

Together with Dr Ernest Schonfield (University of Glasgow), I co-organised a conference on the landmark Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, held virtually (in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic) on 17-18 September 2020. The conference was supported by the Goethe Institute Glasgow. Additional conference sponsors were the Austrian Cultural Forum London, the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture at the Institute of Modern Languages Research London, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Aberdeen. Please see https://bernhardglasgow2020.wordpress.com/ for further details. An online exhibition of photo-illustrations by Heiko Berner for Bernhard’s Ein Kind/A Child accompanied the conference. The bilingual exhibition catalogue was published in December 2019 and may be viewed here. An edited volume, arising from the conference, was published in 2023: Thomas Bernhard: Language, History, Subjectivity (Leiden: Brill, 2023).

Women in German Studies (WIGS) Open Conference: Crossing Thresholds

Together with Dr Gundula Sharman, Dr Tara Beaney, and the WIGS committee, I co-organised the WIGS 2021 Open Conference ‘Crossing Thresholds’, which was hosted by the German Department, University of Aberdeen (online), on 24-26 June 2021. WIGS Open Conferences are only held every four to five years and are open to people of all genders, both members and non-members of WIGS. The theme for our Open Conference was ‘Crossing Thresholds’, and five interrelated panels explored questions relating to this core theme. There was also a special panel strand addressing matters of Diversity and Inclusivity in German Studies. Prof. I. M. Nick (Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics) gave the keynote lecture, and there was an author reading by Hanna Sukare. The conference was hosted with the generous support of the DAAD, Women in German Studies, and the University of Aberdeen. Further information is available on the dedicated LLMVC conference webpage (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sll/disciplines/women-in-german-studies-conference-1576.php) and a conference report is available here: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sll/news/15129/

Funding and Grants

Aberdeen Humanities Fund Development Trust Research Award (2019-2020, extended until 2022 due to Covid-19 travel restrictions) 

Friends of Aberdeen University Library Collection Development Award (2018)

Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012-2015)

AHRC Doctoral Studentship (2007-2010)

Teaching Responsibilities

Teaching in HS1 of 2024/25 in German Studies and Film & Visual Culture

• GM1049/1052 Background to German for Beginners 1/Modern German Culture 1 (convenor)
• GM4052 Dissertation in German (supervisor)
• FS2007 Visualising Modernity (convenor)
• FS3017/4017 Film and Music (convenor)
• FS30FD/40FD Cinematic Cities (lectures and seminars)
• FS5022 Research Methods in Film and Visual Culture (seminars)
• IH5003 Understanding Cultural Heritage and Memory (online course: lectures)

Other courses taught

• GM1556 Modern German Culture 2 (convenor)
• GM301H/401H Landmarks of Modern Austrian Literature (convenor)
• GM301K/401K Confronting the Nazi Past in German and Austrian Film (convenor)
• GM3069 German Language Study (previously convenor)
• GM351F/GM451F Film and Politics: German and Austrian Filmmakers Facing the World (convenor)
• GM3578/GM4578 German Specialised Study (HS2): Contemporary Austrian Literature and Film (convenor)
• GM3050 German Language Study (seminars; previously convenor) 
• FS1508 Introduction to Film and the Cinematic Experience (lectures)
• FS2507 Visualising Revolution (lectures)
• FS30EA/40ED Confronting the Nazi Past in German and Austrian Film (convenor)
• FS35FD/45FD Cinematic Cities (lectures and seminars)
• FS35EF/45EF Film and Politics: German and Austrian Filmmakers Facing the World (convenor)
• FS4002 Dissertation in Film & Visual Culture (supervisor; previously convenor)
• FS4506 Dissertation in Film & Visual Culture (supervisor; previously convenor)
• FS5527 Projects in Film and Visual Culture (seminars)
• FS5902 Dissertation in Film & Visual Culture (supervisor)

Postgraduate Teaching

I teach on the MLitt in Film, Visual Culture and Arts Management, where I also supervise dissertation projects. Additionally, I have supervised dissertation projects on the MSc in Cultural and Creative Communication, and have taught on the MSc in Translation Studies. 

PhD supervision

I currently act as second supervisor to Denis Kneip (2019-), who is undertaking a PhD in Film & Visual Culture, as well as to Morag Macrae (2021-), who is undertaking a PhD in Hispanic Studies and Film & Visual Culture, and to Judita Hunakova (2024-), who is undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing. 

Previous PhD supervision

Lauren Cuthbert (2020-23), 'Transnational memory and the representation of the Vietnam War in the films of East German documentary filmmakers Heynowski and Scheumann'. Lead supervisor. Thesis passed with no corrections.

I welcome enquiries from potential postgraduate students on topics in my areas of expertise.

PhD examining

Since 2019 I have examined 7 PhD theses as internal or external examiner.