We are happy to welcome Assistant Teaching Professor of French & Italian, Irina Markina this fall to the University of Washington and the Department of French & Italian Studies!
Professor Markina comes to UW from Princeton University, where she earned an MA (2016) followed by a PhD in French Studies (2022). There she taught a range of French courses and together with Effie Rentzou created a new interdisciplinary course, France on Display, under the auspices of the Collaborative Teaching Initiative. Markina also served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Princeton's Center for Teaching and Learning. Outside of Princeton, she enjoyed working in the role of Course Assistant and Instructor for the Yale Summer Session program in France and as a Visiting Instructor at Bryn Mawr College. She looks forward to continuing her work and meeting students and colleagues at the UW.
Markina’s research interests are interdisciplinary, positioned primarily at the intersection of 19th- and early 20th-century visual culture and literature. Her current book project titled Institutionalizing Revolution: The Official Mural Art Campaign of the Third Republic focuses on public murals commissioned by the French Third Republic for Parisian arrondissement town halls between 1873 and 1914. Her research interests also include the intersection of gender and nationalism, visual poetry, ekphrasis, and the 19th-century novel. This research has been supported by the Phi Beta Kappa, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. She has presented her work in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.
Markina is committed to pedagogy and mentoring, and is excited to collaborate with faculty across the UW's language programs to develop meaningful learning experiences for our undergraduate and graduate students. She is eager to join colleagues in spearheading curricular innovation projects that highlight the value of language, literature, and cultural studies.