Stephen was formerly Professor of Cultural Studies and Russian at the University of Surrey (1996-2006) and Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Rochester, New York (1990-1996). He is President of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies andwas a member of the RAE 2008 subpanel for Russian and Slavonic Languages and Cultures. He is on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Russian Journal of Communication, ArtMargins, and Russian Studies in Literature.

Stephen has research interests in Russian cultural and media studies, Russian and Soviet television and film, Russian and Soviet literature and literary/cultural theory. He is currently PIon a 4th majorAHRC research grant, which he is leading with Professor Vera Tolz. The project, which runs from 2010-2013is called 'Mediating Difference: Post-Soviet Russian Television Representations of Inter-Ethnic Cohesion Issues (420,000). Herecently completeda 3-year AHRC funded project on 'European Television Representations of Islam as a Security Threat: A Comparative Study (Russia, France, UK)' (490,000). The project, for which Stephenwas the PI,was interdisciplinary and was carried out in collaboration with the Politics Department at the University of Surrey.) Stephen's second 3-year AHRC-funded projectran from 2003 to 2006 and was on 'Post-Soviet Television Culture' (165,000). Stephen's first AHRC project (also 3 years) ran between 2000 and 2003 and was entitled 'An Analysis of the Relationship between Russian Literature and the Camera Media: The Word as Image'(111,000).

He is co-author (with Natalia Rulyova) of Television and Culture in Putin's Russia: RemoteControl (London: Routledge, 2009), andauthor ofRussian Literary Culture in the Camera Age: The Word as Image (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004); Russian Modernism: The Transfiguration of the Everyday (Cambridge: CUP, 1997); A Semiotic Analysis of the Short Stories of Leonid Andreev, 1900-1909 (London: MHRA, 1990). He is editor of Russia and its Others on Film: Screening Intercultural Dialogue (London: Palgrave, 2008), and co-editor of The Post-Soviet Russian Media: Conflicting Signals (London: Routledge, 2009).

In addition to Russian language at all levels, Stephen has taught across a wide range of areas within Russian Studies, Soviet and Post-Soviet literary Studies, film and cultural studies, and within cultural and literary theory. He is currently responsible for modules on Post-Soviet Television (Postgraduate) and Post-Soviet Russian Cinema (Undergraduate and Postgraduate).

Research Students

Stephen is currently supervising8 PhD students. He is willing to supervise studentsworking on aspects of Russian and Soviet film,cultural, mediaand literary studies.