Roshanna P. Sylvester听is Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices and Digital Humanities. Her appointment is split between the Department of Critical Media Practices in CMCI and the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics听and Society in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Originally trained in Russian history (PhD Yale University), Sylvester specializes in the histories of gender, technology听and culture听and the history of childhood in the early space age.
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Her first book,听Tales of Old Odessa: Crime and Civility in a City of Thieves, explored identity creation and expression in the pre-revolutionary city through analysis of crime reporting in the popular press. Sylvester鈥檚 current project,听Dreams in Orbit: Girls and Space-Age Cultures in Cold War America and the Soviet Union听focuses on letters from Soviet and American young people to the pioneering spacefarers Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, and Valentina Tereshkova. External funding for the project has been provided by the Spencer Foundation, the American Philosophical Society听and the Kennan Institute.听
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Sylvester has published research articles in听Slavic Review,听Russian Review,听Journal of the History of Sexuality,听Journal of Urban History,听Jahrb眉cher f眉r Geschichte Osteuropas听and several edited volumes on Soviet space history and culture. Her work has been featured in听The Conversation,听Smithsonian Magazine,听AP News,听the听Los Angeles Review of Books, the听Russian History blog听and others. She has also presented at 兔子先生传媒文化作品鈥檚 Fiske Planetarium and the Manfred Olsen Planetarium (at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
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Before coming to CU, Sylvester was Associate Professor of History and member of the Distinguished Honors Faculty at DePaul University in Chicago. Recipient of the Thomas and Carol Dammrich Faculty Innovation Award, Sylvester served as Director of听听StudioCHI, DePaul鈥檚 digital humanities center and was a member of the听Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science听steering committee.听She was also a visiting fellow at the听Clinton Institute of American Studies听at University College Dublin.