Dr Todd Armstrong

Todd Armstrong did his undergraduate work at the Universities of Montana and Oregon, and then studied at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow, USSR. After completing a year of study in Poland at the Universities of Warsaw and Wroclaw, he began graduate studies at the Ohio State University, where he earned the Ph.D. in Russian literature, with a secondary specialization in Polish literature. He joined the Russian Department at Grinnell College in 1993, serving as chair on numerous occasions. His research has focused on the literature of trauma in the context of Poland and the Holocaust, particularly on the works of Czeslaw Milosz and Hanna Krall, and more recently on contemporary Russian film and popular culture. He has taught Russian at the Middlebury College Summer Russian School, and has served on the board of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), and as Vice President (Literature) of the American Association of the Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL). He was the first Director of Grinnell College's Center for International Studies. He has taught a wide range of courses at Grinnell College, including all levels of the Russian language, introductory linguistics, Dostoevsky, modern Russian culture, and Central and Eastern European literature. He is currently developing new approaches to teaching and writing about Russian and Soviet culture through the culinary arts in Grinnell’s new Global Kitchen.