Profile
Jessica Pisano is Professor of at 麻豆传媒色情片 for Social Research. She writes and teaches about contemporary and twentieth century politics and political economy in Eastern Europe. Her work focuses on the enclosure of public resources, the constitution of material and social power, and political and social processes of dispossession. She asks how shifts in political economy affect people's lives, and how those effects translate into changes in local, national, and global politics. Her research is interdisciplinary, drawing on听archival sources as well as a variety of immersion-based methods, including participant-observation research. She writes and lectures in English, French, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Professor Pisano is the author of (Cornell University Press, 2022) and (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which received the Harvard University Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies in 2009. She is writing a book about place and belonging under fascism, state socialism, and neoliberal democracy on a single street in Eastern Europe between 1938 and 2014. Her public-facing work on American, Ukrainian, and Russian politics has appeared in Politico and The Washington Post, among others. She is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow.
More information is available at Professor Pisano's .听
Degrees Held
PhD 2003, Yale University
AB 1994, Harvard College
Professional Affiliation
Trustee, Kharkiv Karazin University Foundation, Ukraine, 2022-Present
Founding faculty director, Decolonizing Eastern European Studies research group, 2017-Present
Center associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, 2004-Present
听
Recent Publications
Books
听2022. Cornell University Press.
.听 2008.听 Cambridge University Press.听 Winner of the AAASS (ASEEES) Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies.听
Articles and Book Chapters
鈥Ethnography,鈥 in Jennifer Cyr and Sara Wallace Goodman, eds. Doing Good Qualitative Research. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
"De la polarisation 脿 une communaut茅 nationale r茅siliente: Changements au sein de la soci茅t茅 ukrainienne en temps de guerre," in Le Canada 脿 l'aune du conflit en Ukraine (Qu茅bec Presses de l'Universit茅 Laval, 2024).
"Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Vision of Ukrainian Nationhood," Journal of Peace and War Studies, October 2022, pp. 187-198.
"How Zelensky Has Changed Ukraine," Journal of Democracy, July 2022.
鈥淧ost-Soviet or Eurasian Lands? Rethinking Analytic Categories in the Ukraine-EU and Russia-China Borderlands鈥 (with Andr茅 Simonyi), in Tone Bringa and Hege Toje, eds. Eurasian Borderlands: Spatializing borders in the aftermath of state collapse" (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), pp. 27-57.
"Pokazukha and Cardiologist Khrenov: Soviet Legacies, Legacy Theater, and a Usable Past,鈥 in Mark Beissinger and Stephen Kotkin, eds. . (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 222-242.
鈥淥pting Out under Stalin and Khrushchev: Post-War Sovietization in a Borderlands Magyar Village,鈥 Problems of Post-Communism, 58:1 (January-February 2011), pp. 58-66. 听
鈥淭he Social Life of Borders: Political economy at the edge of the EU鈥 (with A ndr茅 Simonyi) in Joan DeBardeleben and Achim Hurrelmann (eds.), (Palgrave, 2011), 222-238.听 听
鈥淪ocial contracts and authoritarian projects in post-Soviet space: The use of administrative resource鈥 Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 43:4 (2010), pp. 373-382.听
鈥淟egitimizing facades: Civil Society in post-Orange Ukraine鈥 in Paul D鈥橝nieri (ed.), (Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), pp. 229-253.听
鈥淔rom Iron Curtain to Golden Curtain: Remaking Identity in the European Union Borderlands,鈥 East European Politics and Societies , 23:2 (May 2009), pp. 266-290.听 Winner of Hungarian Studies Association Mark Pittaway prize.
鈥淗ow to Tell an Axe Murderer: An Essay on Ethnography, Truth, and Lies,鈥 in Edward Schatz (ed.), (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 53-73.听 Co-recipient of American Political Science Association Giovanni Sartori Award.听听
鈥淧roperty: What is it good for?鈥 Social Research, 76:1 (Spring 2009), pp. 175-202.
鈥淭he Two Faces of Petr Arkad鈥檈vich: Land and Dispossession in Russia鈥檚 Southwest, ca. 2000,鈥 International Journal of Labor and Working Class History, (Spring 2007), pp. 70-90.
鈥Klychkov i Pustota: Post-Soviet Bureaucrats and the Production of Institutional Facades,鈥 in Thomas Lahusen and Peter Solomon (eds.), (London: LIT Verlag, 2007), pp. 40-56.
鈥溾楩riendship of Peoples鈥 After the Fall: Violence and Pan-African Community in Post-Soviet Moscow鈥 (with Eric Allina-Pisano) in Maxim Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: 300 Years of Encounters (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2006), pp. 175-198.
鈥淪ub Rosa Resistance and the Politics of Economic Reform: Land Redistribution in Post-Soviet Ukraine,鈥 World Politics,56:4 (July 2004), pp. 554-81.
鈥淟and Reform and the Social Origins of Private Farmers in Russia and Ukraine,鈥 Journal of Peasant Studies, 31:3 (July 2004).489-514.
鈥淎grarnye reformy v Rossii i na Ukraine: sravnitel鈥檔yi analiz,鈥 Otechestvennye zapiski, 4:1 (March 2004), 1-12.
鈥淩eorganization and its Discontents: A Case Study in Voronezh oblast鈥,鈥漣n David O鈥橞rien and Stephen Wegren (eds.), (Washington, D.C. and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp 298-324.
Essays and Shorter Pieces
"," Public Seminar, March 28, 2023.
"," Public Seminar February 23, 2023.
"," Politico Magazine, February 23, 2023.
"," Politico Magazine, March 2, 2022.
",鈥 The Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, January 24, 2020.
鈥淲,鈥 Impeachment Inquiry and The Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, November 22, 2019.
"T,鈥 The Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, November 14, 2019.
"Teatr po prinuzhdeniiu. Pochemu podderzhka vlasti na Ukraine i v Rossii imeet malo obshchego c demokratiei ili avtoritarizmom. Poteria obshchego iazyka v razgovorakh o politike proiskhodit ne tol鈥檏o v rezul鈥檛ate ideologicheskikh usilii vlasti鈥 [Theatre under duress: Why support for the authorities in Ukraine and Russia has little in common with democracy or authoritarianism. The loss of a common language in conversations about politics is occurring not only due to the ideological efforts of the powers that be], Republic (Moscow), April 25, 2019, .
"Potemkin Villages,鈥 in The Global Encyclopedia of Informality. Alena Ledeneva, ed. University College London Press, 2018, Volume 2, pp. 278-280.
"Tug of War: Notes from the Battlefield of Reflexivity,鈥 Cultural Anthropology, November 2014.
Research Interests
Politics and political economy in the twentieth and twenty-first century; approaches to land and belonging; ethnography and qualitative research methods; the politics of concepts.
Primary research languages: English, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian.
Awards And Honors
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2024.
Robert Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies Fellowship, 麻豆传媒色情片, 2021.
Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought, 麻豆传媒色情片, Fellowship, 2018.
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Fellowship, 2017 (declined).
Robert Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies Fellowship, 麻豆传媒色情片, 2017.
Distinguished University Teaching Award, 麻豆传媒色情片, 2017.
Institute for Advanced Study Senior Fellowship, Central European University, 2016 (declined).
Hungarian Studies Association Mark Pittaway biennial prize for the best scholarly article relating to Hungary for 鈥淔rom Iron Curtain to Golden Curtain: Remaking Identity in the European Union Borderlands,鈥 in the Spring 2009 issue of 听East European Politics and Societies, 2011.
Fulbright Scholarship Board, Council for International Exchange of Scholars, Fulbright award to the Russian Federation (declined), 2011.听
American Political Science Association, Giovanni Sartori Award for the best book in qualitative and multi-methods research for Political Ethnography, co-recipient, 2010.
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Social Sciences Research Chair in the Politics of Property, 2010.
AAASS Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies for best book published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography, for The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village, 2009.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, 2008-2012.
National Council for Eurasian and East European Research Grant, 2007-2009.
Harvard University Ukrainian Institute Shklar Research Fellowship, 2006.
Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2005 and 2006.
American Political Science Association Small Research Grant, 2006.
Colgate University Picker Research Grant, 2006.
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies Research Scholarship, 2004.
Social Science Research Council Eurasia Program Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2004-2006. 听听
Colgate University Dean鈥檚 discretionary research grant, 2004. 听听
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies Research Scholarship (declined), 2002. 听听
Yale University Dissertation Fellowship, 2000. 听听
Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 1998. 听听
IREX Individual Advanced Research Opportunities Research Grant, 1998. 听听
Yale University Ukrainian Initiative dissertation research grant, 1998. 听听
Yale Center for International and Area Studies Dissertation Research Fellowship, 1997. 听听
Fox International Fellowship, Yale University and Moscow State University, 1997. 听听
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 1996-2001. 听听
Yale University Graduate School Fellowship, 1995. 听听
Harvard University prizes for 鈥淐onstructed Lives: Author as Saint in the Soviet Literary Biographical Museum,鈥 1994: Thomas P. Hoopes Prize; Edward Chandler Cummings Prize for best senior essay in History and Literature; George B. Sohier prize for best senior essay in English, Comparative Literature, Slavic or Romance Languages 听听听听 听听听听