Thomas Hodge

I've devoted most of my research to the nexus of Russian literature and Russian music in the 1800s, and to the history of nineteenth-century Russian nature writing and hunting literature. My most recent work is a book-length analysis of Turgenev as a nature writer: Hunting Nature: Ivan Turgenev and the Organic World, published in 2020 by Cornell University Press. An authorized Russian translation of the book -- Природа охотника: Тургенев и органический мир -- was published in 2022 by Academic Studies Press / Bibliorossika.

Over the years I've taught more than a dozen different courses, though now I focus on elementary Russian language and nineteenth-century Russian novels and poems. I teach these literature courses in both English and Russian. In 2000, with Professor Marianne Moore of the Biological Sciences Department, I co-founded Lake Baikal: The Soul of Siberia, a course that sent a dozen Wellesley students to the great lake nine times over the span of two decades.

I write occasional program notes for the Salzburg Festival's concerts of Russian music, as well as liner notes for Deutsche Grammophon. I also collaborate with local musicians who feature Russian repertoire.

I was born and raised in Northern California. In college I played catcher for four years on the varsity baseball team; here's some grainy video evidence from March 1983: Bunt | Tag. These days I enjoy spending time with my wife and two children, commuting on my bike, cooking, catch-and-release fly-fishing, fly-tying, birdwatching, mushroom-hunting, canoeing, hiking, and camping. Sometimes I skip rocks.

Education

• B.A., Pomona College
• M.A., Oxford University
• A.M., Stanford University
• Ph.D., Stanford University