Russian Program Director, Director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, Modern Languages and Literatures
Dr. Andrew Chapman joined the UTSA Modern Languages department in the Fall of 2021. He directs the Russian program and teaches courses in Russian language as well as comparative studies in the humanities in English (under the CSH course designation). Dr. Chapman also works at UTSA as the Director of the UTSA Office of Nationally Competitive Awards.
He advises students of any major on applications to a number of awards, including the Fulbright Student Program, the Critical Language Scholarship, and the Gilman Scholarship for Study Abroad. Students are encouraged to contact Dr. Chapman for support on these awards that forward the goals of life-long language learning, experiential learning, and mutual cultural understanding through international travel.
Dr. Chapman studied Russian in college, a language that his family once spoke before coming to the United States. After studying abroad in Russia, he became a Russian language major, and following graduation he worked in Russia in The Republic of Buryatia for an ecotourism and education non-profit organization. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, conducting research on topics in Russian literature, culture, and digital media. His research looks at how media is produced by amateur filmmakers in Russia, from drivers filming the road with their dashcams to citizen journalists covering protests on YouTube. He is the lead editor of the academic journal Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, which features professors, graduate students, and non academics from all over the world writing about the impact of the internet and digital technology on politics, economics, society, culture and the arts in Russia, Eurasia, and Central Europe.
Before coming to UTSA in 2019, he directed the Office of Study Abroad at St. Mary’s University and taught Russian language and literature at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and the College of William and Mary in Virginia.