Anastasiia Gushchina portrait

Anastasiia Gushchina

PhD
Pronouns: she/her

Affiliations

Research Specialist

Faculty of Arts

Contact information

Email

anastasiia.gushchina@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

LinkedIn

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Background

Educational Background

PhD Communication and Media, University of Calgary, 2026

MA Art Criticism, Saint Petersburg State University, 2017

BA Film and Electronic Arts, Saint Petersburg State University, 2014

Academic CV

Biography

Anastasiia Gushchina holds a PhD in Communication and Media. Her dissertation, "The Stuff of Reality": Towards a Materialist Theory of Animated Documentary, examines the techniques and production processes of independent animated documentaries from the 1990s through the 2010s. She co-edits Animation Studies 2.0, the Society for Animation Studies academic blog, and her work has appeared in Animation Studies, Senses of Cinema, and Fantasy/Animation. Her writing on animation received the Maureen Furniss Award in 2022 and the Jonathan Kahana Graduate Writing Award in 2023. Her research interests include film and animation theory, film philosophy, and documentary practices in the visual arts.

Research

Areas of Research

Animation theory and practice, Film history and theory, Documentary media

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
FILM409 Special Topics in Film Studies (Animated Documentary) Fall 2020
FILM301 Special Topics in National Cinema (Russian Cinema) Winter 2024
FILM351 Canadian Film Winter 2025
COMS367 Visual Communication and Culture Spring 2025

Awards

  • UCalgary Teaching Award, Graduate Assistant (Teaching), 2025
  • Norman McLaren/Evelyn Lambart Award for Best Essay in Animation, Society for Animation Studies. 2025
  • Faculty of Graduate Studies Doctoral Scholarship, University of Calgary. 2024
  • Congress Graduate Merit Award, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. 2024
  • Frances Spratt Graduate Student Fellowship, Calgary Institute for Humanities. 2023
  • Jonathan Kahana Graduate Student Writing Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies. 2023
  • Maureen Furniss Award, Society for Animation Studies. 2022
  • Public Humanities Fellowship, Calgary Institute for Humanities. 2022
  • Sherry Clarkson Prize, 2022
  • Graduate Student Association Graduate Representative Council Distinguished Service Award, Graduate Student Association, University of Calgary. 2022
  • International Doctoral Scholarship, 2020
  • Eyes High International Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship, University of Calgary. 2019

Publications