Dr Anna Khlusova

Anna is a Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries (Global Media). Her research interests lie at the intersection of global media, cultural and gender studies, with additional skills and expertise in migration and transnationalism research. Her previous research projects examined the politics of gender and LGBTQ human rights in Russia; the gendered socio-cultural aspects of East-to-West transnational mobility; and the affordances of new media for local and global community engagement and collaborative research. Most recently, she has been working on a project researching the politics of sexual citizenship and LGBTQ activism in Russia, examining the role, risks and future conditions of possibility surrounding transnational solidarity between Russian and European LGBTQ activists.

Anna holds an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from King’s College London and a PhD in Social, Cultural and Media Studies, also from King’s College London. Her PhD thesis titled “‘White Female Other”: Russian women’s imaginings, practices and experiences of transnational student mobility’ was awarded the Elsevier Outstanding PhD Thesis Prize (2020).

Research Interests

• Gender and LGBTQ politics in Russia
• Cultural and sexual citizenship
• Media, Migration and Gender
• Transnational imaginaries, identity and mediated mobility
• Transnational activism and solidarity
• Digital public engagement
• Collaborative and participatory research approaches

Anna welcomes applications for PhD topics related to any of her research interests.

Teaching

Anna teaches in the fields of global media, gender studies, feminist media, research methodologies, and media and citizenship. 

Expertise and Public Engagement

Anna has experience working on cross-institutional collaborations between academia and the cultural and public sectors and is highly interested in participatory research and public engagement.

Prior to joining CMCI, Anna worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Arts and Humanities Research Institute (AHRI, KCL), where she provided support for the Institute’s collaborative and socially engaged research initiatives. This includes her work as PI on several research projects such as: “Evaluating the Migration Museum Collaborative Residency Scheme”, which aimed at capturing the varied ways that the university may support civic agendas within and without the institution; and “Kneading Knowledge”, which developed an innovative model for socially engaged research by focusing on the online sharing of the embodied knowledge of migration.

Additionally, Anna led the "Public engagement in the digital environment" project, which studied the implications of using digital methods of public engagement for arts and humanities researchers.

Selected publications

Stoltz, P. and Khlusova, A. (Forthcoming) ‘Sexual citizenship, nationalisms and bordering - Russian LGBT Activists and the ‘Foreign Agent Law’, Book Chapter, In: The Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Citizenship. eds. P. Stolz, B.Siims, Chapter 10.

Stevens, E., Khlusova, A., Fine, S., Azzouz, A. and de Vries, L. (2023) ‘‘Together we prepare a feast, each person stirring up memory’’, Humanities.

Khlusova, A. (2021). ‘Public engagement in the digital environment: opportunities and challenges for arts and humanities researchers’, the AHRI Report, [Online].

Khlusova, A. (2017). ‘Legitimising Political Homophobia: Sexual Minorities and Russian Television News’. In: Representing Communities: Discourse and Contexts. Sabido, R. S. (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 97-116.

Reading, A. and Khlusova, A. (2017). ‘Museums’. In: Gender: War. Pető, A. (ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.