I am a historian of 20th century Russia, focusing particularly on on the history of psychiatry and the history of professions in the Stalin period.
My current research project focuses on the history of the schizophrenia diagnosis in Russia and the Soviet Union. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2009.
Peer Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters
- “The Psychopharmacological Revolution in the USSR: Schizophrenia Treatment and the Thaw in Soviet Psychiatry, 1954–64,” Medical History 63, no. 3 (2019): 249–69. https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2019.26.
- Benjamin Zajicek, “Soviet Psychiatry and the Origins of the Sluggish Schizophrenia Concept, 1912-1936,” History of the Human Sciences 31, no. 2 (2018): 88–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695117746057.
- “Banning the Soviet Lobotomy: Psychiatry, Ethics, and Professional Politics during Late Stalinism,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91, no. 1 (2017): 33–61. doi:10.1353/bhm.2017.0002.
- “A Soviet System of Professions: Psychiatry, Professional Jurisdiction, and the Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences, 1932-1951,” in Russian and Soviet Healthcare from an International Perspective: Comparing Professions, Practice, and Gender, 1880-1960, Susan Grant, ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319441702.
- “Insulin Coma Therapy and the Construction of Therapeutic Effectiveness in Stalin’s Soviet Union, 1936-1953,” in Psychiatry in Communist Europe, Matt Savelli and Sarah Marks, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137490919.
- “Soviet Madness: Mild Schizophrenia, Mental Hygiene, and the Professional Jurisdiction of Psychiatry, 1918-1936,” Ab Imperio 4 (2014): 167-194. https://www.academia.edu/30020252/