Ana Hedberg Olenina

Ana Hedberg Olenina is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Media Studies at Arizona State University’s School of International Letters and Cultures. She is also affiliated with the Melikian Center. Her research bridges 20th-century Russian literature, cinema history, and film theory, with a focus on media archeology, spectatorship, and performance. Her acclaimed book Psychomotor Aesthetics (2020) won two major awards, exploring early film’s use of psychology to conceptualize emotional movement. She guest-edited a special issue on Ukrainian cinema for the Slavic and East European Journal (2024) and has published extensively on Soviet avant-garde, neurocinematic approaches, and gesture studies.

Education: Ph.D. Comparative Literature (Harvard, 2012), M.Phil. European Literature (Cambridge, 2005), B.A. English (Vilnius, 2004). She has held grants from ACLS, Harvard Davis Center, and the Soros Foundation. In 2025, she received the Zebulon Pearce Distinguished Teaching Award.

Research highlights include interdisciplinary work on embodied cognition in performance, Soviet formalist theory, and collaborative projects like the Ukrainian Film Forum. She has edited multiple journal issues and curated film projects recognized by the National Society of Film Critics.

Awards include the ASEEES Vucinich Prize (2021) and AATSEEL’s Best First Book (2021). Recent articles analyze Ukrainian cinema’s cultural solidarities, Eisenstein’s neurocinematic techniques, and historical intersections of psychology and film. She leads research clusters on embodied cognition and is affiliated with ASU’s Institute of Humanities Research.