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Dr. Sperling teaches a variety of courses in comparative politics, including Russian politics; revolution and political violence; mass murder and genocide under communism; transitions to democracy; globalization and democracy; and political science fiction. Her research interests lie mainly at the intersection of Russian politics and gender studies.
Sperling's book, Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia (Oxford University Press, 2015) won the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Davis Center Book Prize for the "outstanding monograph on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology or geography," as well as the Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) Heldt Prize for the "Best book in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian Women's Studies." Sex, Politics and Putin was also included in Top 10 books on Russia for 2014. Sperling is also the author of Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia (Cambridge University Press, 1999), and Altered States: The Globalization of Accountability (Cambridge University Press, 2009). She and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom (with Melike Sayoglu) are co-authors of Courting Gender Justice: Russia, Turkey, and the European Court of Human Rights (Oxford University Press,2019). Her most recent book, co-authored with her Clark colleague, Robert Boatright, is Trumping Politics as Usual: Masculinity, Misogyny, and the 2016 Elections (Oxford University Press, 2020). In recent years she has published articles in East European Politics and Societies, Post-Soviet Affairs, and the International Journal of Human Rights.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, 1997
- M.A. in Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, 1992
- M.A. in Russian Area Studies, Georgetown University, 1991
- B.A. in Political Science, Yale University, 1987
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Gender, Germs, and Governors: Political Masculinity and Leadership in the U.S. during the COVID-19 Pandemic
European Journal of Politics and Gender
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2024
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How Masculinity Legitimates Political Regimes
Elles Sans Frontiers, Ninth Congress of Women: Masculinities and Other Bonds
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Brussels, Belgium
December 9
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2024
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Women’s Antiwar Activism in Russia
REEESNe Student Conference
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University of Massachusetts, Amherst
April 13
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2024
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Soviet Legacies in the Kremlin’s Take on Women’s and LGBTQ+ Rights
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2024
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Published by Routledge
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2024
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Unpacking ‘Traditional Values’ in Russia’s Conservative Turn: Gender, Sexuality, and the Soviet Legacy
Europe-Asia Studies
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2024
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Vol. 76
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Issue #2
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Gender, Germs, and Governors: Political Masculinities and Leadership in the U.S. During the COVID-19 Pandemic
European Journal of Politics and Gender
January
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2024
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Russia in a Changing Climate
WIREs Climate Change
March/April
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2024
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Vol. 15
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Issue #2
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Exodus: Russian Repression and Social Movement
Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Convention
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Philadelphia, PA
December
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2023
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Masculinity and Authoritarianism: Political Leadership and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
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March
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2023
Sponsored by Inclusive National Security Initiative: Center for Naval Analysis, Washington DC
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Awards & Grants
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Values-based Legitimation in Authoritarian States: top-down versus bottom-up strategies, the case of Russia (LegitRuss)
Research Council of Norway
Sep. 1, 2020 - Dec. 25, 2023
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Everyday Activism in Russia: Civil Society Thirty Years after Communism’s Collapse
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Aug. 1, 2021
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Faculty Associateship
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
2018
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Advisor of the Year Award
Clark University
2023
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