A teenage Jennifer Flaherty loved ideas so much that among her criteria for the perfect college was an idyllic setting where she could sit under a tree and read history and philosophy.
“That was really my vision when I went to college,” Flaherty recalled. “Who knew you could make a career out of it?”
She must have had at least an inkling, because Flaherty is now doing just that. She is a new assistant professor of the practice in Duke’s Slavic and Eurasian Studies department, teaching courses in Russian folklore, literature and culture.
It began at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, N.C., where Flaherty grew up. She took several required theology courses, sparking a fascination with ideas that led her to Appalachian State University in the North Carolina mountains – where there are plenty of beautiful trees to read beneath. There, she studied English and philosophy and read everything she could get her hands on. But it wasn’t until her senior year that she found her way to Dostoevsky, the legendary 19th century Russian novelist.
She was so fascinated by two of his works — “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Notes from Underground” — that she wrote her honor’s thesis on an interaction that perplexed her. How, she wondered, could the same author write two such seemingly disparate novels? “Notes from Underground” is dark, brooding and pessimistic, while “Brothers Karamazov” reflects a great deal of faith and optimism.
“They struck me as fundamentally different in views of freedom and views of religion,” Flaherty said. “These were questions I was thinking of in my philosophy courses. I wanted to know how one person could have an intellectual history that brought two very distinct ways of viewing the world together.”
These ideas became questions to unravel. Flaherty went on to advanced degrees first at the University of Chicago and later at the University of California, Berkeley, where she would earn a master’s and Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She has visited Russia several times over the years, immersing herself in language, folklore, culture and history.
Flaherty has carved out her academic niche around a pivotal point in Russian history — the emancipation of Russian serfs — or peasants — in 1861. The most prominent writers in 19th century Russia, like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, were close observers of the emancipation, and Flaherty’s scholarship traces how that moment influenced and is reflected in their writing.
It was, for these authors, a tricky venture. They were members of the upper class, writing for a small minority of literate Russian elites. Russia was a largely uneducated, agrarian society at the time, and while writer-intellectuals often wanted to reflect the struggles of the common man in their writing, those people could rarely actually read the stories.
“So Russian authors were writing for their peers and foreigners. Though they wanted to change society and reflect true Russian people, they couldn’t reach the peasants,” Flaherty said. “There are a lot of histories of serfdom, but not that much that links serfdom and the great authors, many of whom witnessed this time in Russia.”
Flaherty believes there are contemporary lessons in this vital Russian history, noting the belief of many young people today that they don’t have a proper voice in a society that is growing more expensive and out of reach to them.
“The very term ‘enfranchisement’ means you have a voice in the political space, which peasants didn’t,” she said. “But they didn’t have a cultural space either. They had folklore and traditions, but no way to express them outwardly. That sense of disenfranchisement is super relevant today, and when I do share this with students it is very easy to connect with circumstances today in the way that literature gives us.”
And there are less-known, inspiring lessons as well.
“When we dig into history, we can also find the paths not taken — the way things could have been,” Flaherty said. “This helps us lift up an ongoing but often hidden narrative of resistance and counteract stereotypes.”
Flaherty’s hiring comes as her Slavic and Eurasian Studies department puts a renewed emphasis on a humanities-based training heavy on literature, culture and language skills, said Jehanne Gheith, the department’s chair.
“Professor Flaherty’s academic work intersects with literary and cultural theory, and she is helping the field of Slavic Studies — which has historically been slow to decolonize in deep and nuanced ways — move forward in those directions in really exciting ways,” Gheith said.
This fall, Flaherty is teaching “Follow the Ruble: Money in Russian Culture,” which examines the depiction of money in Russian film and literature. Her expertise will serve Duke well in this particular moment — with Russia so prominent on the global stage — Gheith added.
“The widespread geopolitical effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war show how much we need to ramp up study of Slavic culture in rich, complex, nuanced terms,” she said. “Professor Flaherty’s research into and teaching of various aspects of Russian thought and Russian culture accomplishes exactly this kind of deep and rich analysis.”
And Russia’s past and present are inextricably linked, so a history lesson goes a long way towards understanding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s current machinations, Flaherty said.
“If you’re going to understand what’s happening in Putin’s Russia right now and what led to the war in Ukraine, you have to understand the 90s — the collapse of the Soviet Union and the power vacuum that resulted from that,” she said. “And if you want to understand the 90s, you have to understand the slow dissolution of the Soviet Union. And if you want to understand how the Soviet Union was constituted, you have to go back to why the revolution even happened. It really is a long game.”