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Roshanna P. Sylvester

Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices and Digital Humanities, University of Colorado Boulder

Roshanna P. Sylvester is Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices and Digital Humanities. Her appointment is split between the Department of Critical Media Practices (College of Media, Communication, and Information) and the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics and Society (College of Engineering and Applied Science). Originally trained in Russian history (PhD Yale University), Sylvester specializes in the histories of gender, technology and culture and the history of childhood in the early space age.

Her first book, Tales of Old Odessa: Crime and Civility in a City of Thieves, explored identity creation and expression in the pre-revolutionary city through analysis of crime reporting in the popular press. Sylvester’s current project, A Sky Full of Stars: Girls and Space-Age Cultures in Cold War America and the Soviet Union focuses on letters from Soviet and American young people to the pioneering spacefarers Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, and Valentina Tereshkova. External funding for the project has been provided by the Spencer Foundation, the American Philosophical Society and the Kennan Institute.

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices and Digital Humanities, University of Colorado Boulder
  • 2019–2020
    Scholar-in-Residence, University of Colorado Boulder
  • 2005–2018
    Associate Professor of History, DePaul University
  • 2008–2009
    Visiting Fellow, Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin
  • 2002–2005
    Assistant Professor of History, DePaul University
  • 1998–2002
    Assistant Professor of History, California State University Fullerton

Education

  • 1998 
    Yale University, PhD, History
  • 1988 
    Yale University, MA, Russian and East European Studies
  • 1986 
    University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, BA, History