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Research

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Dr Andy Byford, MA, DPhil

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 43432
Room number: A24, Elvet Riverside I

Contact Dr Andy Byford (email at andy.byford@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

2009-present: Lecturer in Russian, University of Durham
2007-2009: Research Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
2004-2007: Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
2000-2004: DPhil in Russian, University of Oxford
1999-2000: MA in Comparative Literature, University College London
1995-1999: BA in French and Russian, SSEES, University of London

Current Research

Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia (1881-1936)

The project investigates how children became objects of scientific study, professional expertise and public interest in modern societies, focusing on Russia as a key example. It explores the historical contingencies of the rise and fall of a multiprofessional/crossdisciplinary network that claimed child development as a territory of specialist investigation, including: developmental and educational psychology; child psychiatry and special education; hygiene and pediatrics; juvenile criminology and the social anthropology of childhood.

The project is envisaged as an original case study in the social history of the human sciences and professions in the distinctive context of late 19th- and early 20th-century Russia, a period of rapid modernization, socio-political restructuring, and cataclysmic revolutionary upheaval. Among the more general questions posed by this research are:

1. how and why new scientific movements, professional frameworks and expert discourses and practices arise to alter the existing socio-cultural/intellectual landscape

2. what generates and makes possible highly heterogeneous fields of scientific and professional work, carried out through multiple interactions and collaborations between actors belonging to a range of different (in themselves complex and evolving) disciplinary, professional and administrative structures and environments.

The project will result in the first comprehensive history of Russian 'child study' from the 1880s to the 1930s, comparing it to related developments in the West. It will contribute to the social and cultural history of Russia, as well as of the human sciences and professions more generally, exploring issues of considerable topical concern. Further details on the project are available here.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome enquiries from those wishing to pursue a Masters by research (MAR) and/or a PhD on topics related to the social and cultural history of the intelligentsia, professions, science and education in 19th- and 20th-century Russia.

I currently supervise a PhD thesis that examines the cultural identities and social networks of Russian-speaking migrants living and working in Britain. The project, carried out by Ms Polina Kliuchnikova, is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Russian migrant community, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and the analysis of published, internet and other media sources.

Research Groups

School of Modern Languages and Cultures

Research Interests

  • Social and cultural history of the Russian intelligentsia, professions, sciences and education
  • The Russian Diaspora in Great Britain

Selected Publications

Books: authored

Edited works: journals

Essays in edited volumes

Journal papers: academic

  • Byford, Andy (2013). Parent Diaries and the Child Study Movement in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia. The Russian Review 72(2): 212-241.
  • Byford, Andy (2013). Roditel', uchitel' i vrach: k istorii ikh vzaimootnoshenii v dele vospitaniia i obrazovaniia v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Razvitie lichnosti 2: forthcoming.
  • Byford, Andy (2013). Zagrobnaia zhizn’ “nauki” pedologii: k voprosu o znachenii “nauchnykh dvizhenii” (i ikh istorii) dlia sovremennoi pedagogiki. Prepodavatel’ XXI vek 1: 43-54.
  • Byford, Andy. (2012). The Russian Diaspora in International Relations: “Compatriots” in Britain. Europe Asia Studies 64(4): 715-735.
  • Byford, Andy. (2009). "Poslednee sovetskoe pokolenie" v Velikobritanii. Neprikosnovennyi zapas 64(2): 96-116.
  • Byford, Andy. (2008). Psychology at High School in Late Imperial Russia (1881-1917). History of Education Quarterly 48(2): 265-297.
  • Byford, Andy. (2008). Turning Pedagogy into a Science: Teachers and Psychologists in Late Imperial Russia (1897-1917). Osiris 23(1): 50-81.
  • Byford, Andy. (2006). Professional Cross-Dressing: Doctors in Education in Late Imperial Russia (1881-1917). The Russian Review 65(4): 586-616.
  • Byford, Andy. (2005). Initiation to Scholarship: The University Seminar in Late Imperial Russia. The Russian Review 64(2): 299-323.
  • Byford, Andy. (2005). The Rhetoric of Aleksandr Veselovskii’s “Historical Poetics” and the Autonomy of Literary Studies in Late Imperial Russia. Slavonica 11(2): 115-132.
  • Byford, Andy. (2004). Between Literary Education and Academic Learning: The Study of Literature at Secondary School in Late Imperial Russia (1860s-1900s). History of Education 33(6): 637-660.
  • Byford, Andy. (2003). S. A. Vengerov: The Identity of Literary Scholarship in Late Imperial Russia. The Slavonic and East European Review 81(1): 1-31.
  • Byford, Andy. (2003). The Gogol Jubilee of 1909. Essays in Poetics 28: 124-157.
  • Byford, Andy. (2003). The Politics of Science and Literature in French and Russian Criticism of the 1860s. Symposium 56(4): 210-230.
  • Byford, Andy. (2002). The Figure of the “Spectator” in the Theoretical Writings of Brecht, Diderot, and Rousseau. Symposium 56(1): 25-42.
  • Byford, Andy. (2000). Art and Reality in Zamiatin’s Poetic Theory. Symposium 54(3): 139-158.

Other publications: research

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