Alisa Ballard Lin

Alisa Ballard Lin is Associate Professor and Graduate Studies Chair in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University. A specialist in theater and performance studies, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian literature and culture, Russian psychology and philosophy, film studies, and costume and textile studies, her research spans the intersections of performance, belief, and embodiment across Eastern Europe. She is the author of Theatrical Consciousness: The Actor’s Mind in Russian Modernism (Northwestern University Press, 2025) and is completing a monograph titled “I Don’t Believe You!”: Christianity, Performance, and Belief in Russia and Eastern Europe. Lin is also writing the first comprehensive companion to the works of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals and edited volumes, and she is gathering research for a future project on gender and the philosophy of costume in Soviet film, theater, and everyday dress. Lin received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University and her A.B. from Brown University. In addition to her academic work, she writes We Who Tend, a Substack newsletter on care work and productivity, and is deeply engaged in mentoring students on time management and work-life balance.