Dr. Christine Varga-Harris
Professor
Office
SCH Schroeder Hall 325
Office Hours
Wed., 2-4 PM; or by appointment, prearranged via email.
Office Phone
Email
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Selected Research
Biography
Dr. Varga-Harris received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her M.A. from the Center for Russian and East European Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada), and her B.A. at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). Among the undergraduate courses she teaches at ISU are Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, and Society and Daily Life in the East Bloc; she also teaches the graduate topics course Modern Russia (468) and the graduate research seminar (497).
Current Courses
HIS 102.001 Modern Western Civilization
HIS 102.002 Modern Western Civilization
HIS 234.001 Russia From Peter To Lenin: Europeanization, Imperialism & Revolutionary Currents
HIS 300.002 Senior Seminar In History
Teaching Interests & Areas
Russian history from the 800s through the 1990s; postwar/Communist/Cold War Eastern Europe through 1989; gender and imperialism; material and consumer culture
Research Interests & Areas
Russia (especially from 1945-1964/the late Stalin and Khrushchev eras); postwar Eastern Europe; daily life and material culture; Communist ideology and society; gender; Soviet cultural relations with non-aligned countries during the 1950s and 1960s.
Ph D History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL
MA Russian and East European Studies
Carleton University
Ottawa, ON, Canada
BA History
McGill University
Montreal, PQ, Canada
Faculty Research Award
Illinois State University
2025
Inspirational and Influential Faculty Member
2025
Inspirational and Influential Faculty Member
2023
Honorable Mention, Barbara Heldt Prize for Best Article in Slavic/East European/Eurasian Women’s and Gender Studies
Association of Women in Slavic Studies
2020
Faculty Research Award
CAS
2018
Finalist, University Teaching Initiative Award
ISU
2010
Pre-Tenure Faculty Initiative Grant
College of Arts and Sciences, ISU
2010
Finalist, University Research Initiative Award
ISU
2009
Book Review
Review of Rebecca Friedman, Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia: Time at Home (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2023), 81, 1100-1101, Slavic Review
Feminist in Actions if not Name
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2022), 23, 685-689, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History
Review of Katherine Zubovich, Moscow Monumental: Soviet Skyscrapers and Urban Life in Stalin’s Capital (Princeton University Press, 2021)
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2021), 126, 1343-1344, American Historical Review
Review of Aaron Hale-Dorrell, Corn Crusade: Khrushchev’s Farming Revolution in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019)
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2019), 78, 685-686, The Russian Review
Review of Andy Willimott, Living the Revolution: Urban Communes and Soviet Socialism, 1917-1932 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017)
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2019), 134, 495-497, The English Historical Review
Review of Kristen Ghodsee, Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women’s Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018)
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2019), 78, 1049-1050, Slavic Review
Review of Mark Meerovich, Gradostroitel’naia Politika v SSSR, 1917-1929. Ot goroda-sada k vedomstvennomy rabochemy poselky
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2018), 77, 850-851, Slavic Review
Review of Edward Cohn, The High Title of a Communist: Postwar Party Discipline and the Values of the Soviet Regime
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2017), 122, 275-276, American Historical Review
Book, Authored
Stories of House and Home: Soviet Apartment Life during the Khrushchev Years
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2015), Cornell University Press
Book, Chapter
Socialist Internationalism Writ Small: Friendship, Solidarity and Support between Women in the Soviet Union and in Decolonising Countries, 1950s-1960s
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2023), Socialist Internationalism and the Gritty Politics of the Particular: Second-Third World Spaces in the Cold War, Bloomsbury Academic
Decorating in Moderation, Moderating Character: Domestic Space and the Soviet Person in the Era of Mass Housing
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2019), 198-207, Flying Panels: How Concrete Panels Changed the World, ArkDes/The Swedish Center for Architecture and Design
Moving Toward Utopia: Soviet Housing in the Atomic Age
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2012), 133-153, Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West, Amsterdam University Press
Forging Citizenship on the Home Front: Reviving the Socialist Contract and Constructing Soviet Identity During the Thaw
Christine Varga-Harris.
(2006), 101-116, The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization: A Social and Cultural History of Reform in the Khrushchev Era, Routledge-Curzon
Journal Article
From "Backward Villages" to "Speaking of Success": Representations of African Women through the Lens of Soviet Woman during Early Decolonization
Christine Varga-Harris.
Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, (117), 317-363, (2025)
Soviet Women and Internationalism in Socialist Travel Itineraries in the 1950s and 1960s
Christine Varga-Harris.
Diplomatic History, 46 (3), 486-504, (2022)
Between National Tradition and Western Modernization: Soviet Woman and Representations of Socialist Gender Equality as a "Third Way" for Developing Countries, 1956-1964
Christine Varga-Harris.
Slavic Review, 78 (3), 758-781, (2019)
Хрущёвка, коммуналка: социализм и повседневность во время ‘Оттепели’
Christine Varga-Harris.
Новейшая истoрия России, (1), 160-166, (2011)
Homemaking and the Aesthetic and Moral Perimeters of the Soviet Home during the Khrushchev Era
Christine Varga-Harris.
Journal of Social History, 41 (3 (Spring)), 561-589, (2008)
Other
Politics, Ideology and Society After Stalin: Charting a New Course?
Christine Varga-Harris.
Russian Studies in History, 50 (3), (2012)
Review of Lynne Attwood, Gender and Housing in Soviet Russia: Private Life in A Public Space
Christine Varga-Harris.
Reviews in History, (2010)
Presentations
Cultural Outreach and Soviet Representations of Decolonizing Africa through the Lens of Gender, 1956-1964
Christine Varga-Harris.
Iron Curtains or Artistic Gates? Communism and Cultural Diplomacy in the Global South (1945–1991 and Beyond), Vienna, Austria, September, 2024
Cold War Herstories from Across the North-South Divide: Exchanges Between Women in the Soviet Union and the “Developing World”
Christine Varga-Harris.
The State-Socialist World Turned Global: Cultural Encounters during the Cold War, Bucharest, Romania, October, 2023
Liberation – Occupation: Navigating the Continuum of Soviet Military Presence in Hungary
Christine Varga-Harris.
Visegrad Scholarship Presentations, Budapest, Hungary, May 11, 2023
Women of the World Unite! The Soviet Women’s Committee and Cultural Outreach to Developing Countries during the 1950s and 1960s
Christine Varga-Harris.
Kolloquium zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte/Colloquium on Eastern European History, Bremen and Tübingen, Germany, June 7, 2021
Between Friends: The Language of Gender Equality and 'Sisterhood' in Encounters among Soviet and “Third-World” Women
Christine Varga-Harris.
Languages of Internationalism, London, UK, May, 2017
Socialist Internationalism Writ Small: Friendship and Solidarity in Correspondence between Women in the Soviet Union and in the Decolonizing World
Christine Varga-Harris.
Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, Washington, D.C., November, 2016
Orientalism, Soviet-Style: Cultural Exchange and the Inevitability of Communism in the World of Soviet Woman
Christine Varga-Harris.
Alternative Encounters: The ‘Second World’ and the ‘Global South’, 1945-1991, Jena, Germany, November 3, 2014
I complain, therefore I am – "Soviet": Petitioning as a Ritual of Belonging to Soviet Society
Christine Varga-Harris.
Complaints: Cultures of Grievance in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, Princeton, NJ, March 9, 2013
Хрущёвка, коммуналка: социализм и повседневность во время ‘Оттепели’
Christine Varga-Harris.
After the War, After Stalin: Late Stalinism and the Khrushchev Era in the Soviet Union, 1945-1964, St. Petersburg, Russia, October 8, 2010