Profile of <span>Natalie McCauley </span>

Natalie McCauley is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. She was first drawn to teaching language because of its interactive and engaging nature, which she discovered as an English tutor in Moscow, Russia, while completing her MA at the Russian State Humanities University. Since then, she has sought out various teacher training programs, such as at Concordia University and Middlebury College, eager to learn more about second language acquisition and curriculum design. She has taught beginning and intermediate Russian at the University of Michigan, University of Pittsburgh, and now teaches for the Summer Intensive Language Program (SILP) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. Her language classes are based on communicative learning and content-based instruction, meaning her students spend class time interacting with each other organically, discussing pressing topics and current events, and exploring larger questions about real life.

Areas of Interest

Apart from teaching, my primary area of interest is Russian literature. I am currently finishing my doctoral dissertation on Russian women’s literature written just before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. My most recent article, “A Quiet Violence: Loss of Agency as Trauma in L. S. Petrushevskaia’s Svoi krug,” explores the chaotic worlds of Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s short prose and how they reflect feelings of uncertainty just before the fall of the Soviet Union. I have been a board member for the Association for Women in Slavic Studies, which works to promote the study of gender and sexuality within the field, as well as to support young female and non-cisgender scholars.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD, University of Michigan, 2018
  • MA, University of Michigan, 2013
  • MA, Middlebury College, 2011
  • BA, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Honors College, 2009

Professor McCauley has been teaching at the Institute since 2016.