Samantha Farmer

Sam is a PhD student in Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Michigan with interdisciplinary training and interests. Their current dissertation project focuses on feminist, queer, and alternative interpretations of family and familial relations in what Sam prefers to call new or contemporary Yugoslav literature, published generally post-Great Recession (~2008) by younger generations of writers in an increasingly coherent regional literary field and culture.

They hold an M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, where they previously earned a B.A. in History and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and were a host and producer of the podcast The Slavic Connexion. Their MA thesis, "Croatian, Dalmatian, Queer: New Post-Yugoslav Film and Literature," examined two emergent trends in post-Yugoslav culture: a growing body of queer film and literature, and antitouristic depictions of the Dalmatian coast. Sam continues to build on this work by tracking a growing literary and cinematic corpus with ambivalent attachments to the Adriatic Coast.

Beyond the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, Sam is pursuing certificates in Museum Studies, LGBTQ Studies, and Graduate Teaching (CRLT). In 2023, they participated in the Rackham Program for Public Scholarship's Institute for Social Change. In 2025, they will be a Graduate Fellow at the Sweetland Center for Writing. Their literary translations can be found in TROIKA, Asymptote, Zenithism (1921–1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology, Turkoslavia, and Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation. In 2022, they were chosen to participate in the first BCMS-language workshop at the British Centre for Literary Translation's Summer School; for their promise as an emerging translator, they were awarded Words Without Borders' first Momentum Grant for Early Career Translators in 2023.