William Craft Brumfield

Professor of Slavic Studies at Tulane University, New Orleans, Honourary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Foreign member of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences.

  • Fellow at the National Humanities Center in 1992-93;

  • Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000-01.

  • Professor of Slavic studies at Tulane University. Recipient of the 1997 Faculty Research Award from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Tulane University. In 2005 recipient of the Provost's Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship.

  • In April 2002 elected to the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Science.

  • In May 2006 elected Honorary Fellow of the Russian Academy of the Arts (only U.S. citizen elected to two Russian state academies)

  • Ph.D. (1973) in Slavic Languages (specializing in 19th-century Russian literature and history) at the University of California, Berkeley. Dissertation published in various forms, including the monograph «Sotsial'nyi proekt v russkoi literature XIX veka» (The Social project in Russian literature of the 19th century; Moscow, 2009).

  • In March 2011, at the Seventh «Malaia Rodina» National Russian Competition for Regional and Local History Literature, the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications awarded William C. Brumfield a Special Diploma «for his many years of research and cultural-educational activity in the preservation and propagation throughout the world of Russia's regional cultural heritage.»

  • In 2014 William Brumfield was awarded the Academician D. S. Likhachev Prize «for outstanding contributions to the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of Russia.»
     

  • In 1974-80 Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University. Visiting faculty appointments in the Slavic departments at the Universities of Wisconsin (1973-74) and Virginia (1985-86).

  • Frequent lecturer on Russian culture (architecture, literature, photography) at museums and universities in North America and in Europe.

  • Work and research in Russia for a total of almost ten years (as of 2011). Graduate and post-doctoral research at Moscow State University and Leningrad State University (IREX fellowships), as well as at the Russian Institute of Art History in Moscow . Co-director of NEH Summer Institute for College and University Faculty «Moscow: Architecture and Art in Historical Perspective,» held in Moscow during the summer of 1994. Subsequently conducted faculty summer seminars in Russia with the organizational support of the Russian Institute of Art History. Currently involved in photographing and researching architecture throughout Russia.

  • Active participant as photographer and author in Library of Congress internet projects, including «Meeting of the Frontiers» and the World Digital Library (joint project with UNESCO).

FELLOWSHIP AND GRANT SUPPORT FROM:

  • the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,

  • the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH),

  • the National Humanities Center,

  • the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies (at the Woodrow Wilson Center),

  • the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR)

  • the American Councils for International Education (ACIE),

  • the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research,

  • International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX),

  • the Kress Foundation,

  • the Woodrow Wilson Foundation,

  • the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

PUBLICATIONS

Author and photographer of numerous books on Russian architecture:

  • GOLD IN AZURE: ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE (Boston: Godine, 1983);

  • THE ORIGINS OF MODERNISM IN RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE (Univ. of California Press, 1991);

  • A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), which The *New York Times Book Review* included in its «Notable Books of the Year 1993»;

  • LOST RUSSIA: PHOTOGRAPHING THE RUINS OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE (Duke Univ. Press, 1995; AAUP award for design, 1996;

  • LANDMARKS OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY (Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1997);

  • second, expanded edition of A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE (Univ. of Washington Press, 2004);

  • SOTSIAL'NYI PROEKT V RUSSKOI LITERATURE XIX VEKA (Tri Kvadrata Press, Moscow, 2009).

EDITOR OF

  • AN ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY OF ST. PETERSBURG, 1840—1916: A BUILDING INVENTORY (Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, 1994);

Since 2001 extensive book publications in Russia, including two series with texts and photographs by Brumfield:

1. «Otkryvaia Rossiiu» (Discovering Russia), consisting of thirteen volumes to date:

  • TOTMA (2005);

  • IRKUTSK (2006);

  • TOBOLSK (2006);

  • SOLIKAMSK (2007);

  • CHERDYN (2007);

  • KARGOPOL (2007);

  • CHITA (2008);

  • BURIATIIA (2008);

  • SOLOVKI (2008);

  • KOLOMNA (2009);

  • SUZDAL (2009);

  • TORZHOK (2010)

  • USOL'E (2012)

2. Architectural monuments of the Vologda territory, consisting of six hardcover volumes to date:

  • VOLOGDA ALBUM (2005);

  • VELIKII USTIUG (2007);

  • KIRILLOV. FERAPONTOVO (2009);

  • USTIUZHNA (2010);

  • BELOZERSK (2011).

  • VOLOGDA (2012)

EDITED VOLUMES:

  • RESHAPING RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE: WESTERN TECHNOLOGY, UTOPIAN DREAMS (Cambridge Univ. Press/Woodrow Wilson Center, 1990),

  • CHRISTIANITY AND THE ARTS IN RUSSIA (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991),

  • RUSSIAN HOUSING IN THE MODERN AGE: DESIGN AND SOCIAL HISTORY (Cambridge Univ. Press/Woodrow Wilson Center, 1993),

  • COMMERCE IN RUSSIAN URBAN CULTURE, 1861—1914 (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2001).

Last two books also appeared in Russian editions.

Contributor of entries on Russian architecture to major encyclopedias, such as

  • THE CAMBRIDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIA (1994);

  • ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY (2004);

  • ENCYCLOPEDIA OF 20-TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE (2004);

  • THE OXFORD COMPANION TO ARCHITECTURE (2 vols., 2009).

Numerous articles and chapters — in English as well as Russian publications — on Russian architecture, photography, and literature.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Brumfield's photographs of Russian architecture — exhibited at numerous galleries and museums in the US, Russia, France, and Canada — are part of the collection of

the Photographic Archives at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A collection is also held in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress and displayed at the following LC site:
http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfdigcol/mfdcphot.html

EXHIBITS

(partial list): «The Russian Art of Building in Wood» (a traveling exhibit sponsored by the National Humanities Center), and «Lost Russia: Photographs by William Brumfield,» opened at the Duke University Museum of Art in January 1996, and shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art (Nov. 1996-Feb. 1997), the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and other museums. Major retrospective: «The Russian North. The Witness of William Brumfield», 2001, State Museum of Architecture, Moscow.

INTERNET

Photographic work featured on a number of U.S. and Russian internet sites, including:

  • Main Russian site, maintained by the Information Center of the Culture Department of the Administration of Vologda oblast':
                   www.cultinfo.ru/brumfield
     

  • The Library of Congress «Meeting of Frontiers» site:
                   frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfdigcol/mfdcphot.html.
     

  • The World Digital Library:
                   www.wdl.org/en/search/gallery?ql=eng&s=brumfield
     

  • The «Discovering Russia» series, with texts and photographs on regional architectural heritage for Russia beyond the Headlines, the foreign  language service of the Russian national newspaper «Rossiiskaia Gazeta»:
                   rbth.ru/discovering_russia
     

  • Site at Pomor State University, Arkhanagelsk (now Northern Federal State University):
                   narfu.ru