Rate My Professor Volha Isakava

Volha Isakava is Professor and Chair in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Central Washington University. She earned a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Alberta. Since joining Central Washington University in 2014, she has served as coordinator of the Russian Studies Program and the Global Cultural Training Certificate. Isakava teaches all levels of Russian language courses and specialized culture courses, including RUSS 200: The Art of the Protest: Censorship and Resistance in Russian Culture, WLC 311: Popular Cultures of the World, and KRN 311: Korean Cinema and Visual Culture. A native of Crimea, Ukraine, who grew up in Minsk, Belarus, she brings firsthand experience to her teaching on post-Soviet cultures.

Isakava's research focuses on East Slavic cinemas and visual cultures, particularly those of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the globalization of cinema and popular culture. Her latest work examines Belarusian horror cinema. Key publications include 'The body in the dark: body, sexuality and trauma in perestroika cinema' (Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 2009), 'Between the public and the private: Svetlana Aleksievich interviews Ales' Adamovich. Translator’s preface' (Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2017), 'Reality excess: chernukha cinema in the late 1980s' (Ruptures and Continuities in Soviet/Russian Cinema, 2017), 'The euphoric film: Ivan Vyrypaev’s Euphoria, metacinema and affect' (Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 2018), 'Of Monsters and Men: Horror Film in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia' (Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2014), 'Horror Cinema in Belarus: An Unlikely Case Study' (Monstrum, 2023), and '‘Let cinema haunt us’: War in eastern Ukraine on screen' (Contemporary Slavic Horror Across Media, 2025). Her scholarship has appeared in journals such as Studia Filmoznawcze, Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, and Slavica Tergestina, contributing to discussions on horror genres, chernukha phenomena, and representations in post-Soviet media.