Dr Susan Grant
Humanities and Social Science
I am a historian of the Soviet Union with a particular interest in the history of healthcare, ageing, and physical culture. My first book, 'Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s,' examined the construction of the New Soviet Person through an analysis of the ideology, propaganda, and practice of physical culture. In 2017 I edited a book that examines comparative aspects of Soviet healthcare, titled 'Russian and Soviet Health Care from an International Perspective: Comparing Professions, Practice and Gender' (London: Palgrave Macmillan). More recently, I have co-edited with Dr James Ryan a volume on Stalinism, 'Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions, and Controversies' (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), to mark the work of Prof. Geoffrey Roberts.
My second book, 'Soviet Nightingales: Care under Communism' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022), examines the Soviet project through the prism of healthcare. I analyse the experiences of nurses and middle medical workers to show shifting attitudes to gender, class, and care in the USSR. Beginning with the origins of Russian nursing in the nineteenth century, I track the story of nurses through the major events in Soviet history to the end of the socialist experiment. This book will be Open Access thanks to LJMU. 'Soviet Nightingales' won the 2022 American Association for the History of Nursing Lavinia L. Dock Research Award.
My current project, 'Growing Old in the Soviet Union, 1945-1991,' received a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (Ref No: 209842/Z/17/Z). The project analyses state approaches to ageing that include scientific research, healthcare policy, medical services, and psychiatry. It explores subjective aspects of ageing by finding out what it was like growing old in the world's first socialist society, as well as the influence of gerontology in the Soviet Union and abroad. I was also awarded Wellcome Research Enrichment Public Engagement funding. As part of this award the 'Growing Old' team has collaborated with Taira Foo Choreography to capture their research through dance and engage with the public in the form of discussion and questionnaires.
Together with Dr Isaac McKean Scarborough, I am co-editing the volume, 'Geriatrics and Ageing in the Soviet Union: Medical, Political and Social Contexts' (Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming February 2023), that explores the practice of geriatrics, the science of gerontology, and the experience of growing old . The volume will be fully Open Access thanks to the Wellcome Trust and LJMU. For more information about the project please visit www.sovietageing.com.
I welcome expressions of interest from those wishing to undertake a PhD on any of the above themes.
Academic appointments
Professor in Russian and Soviet History, Liverpool John Moores University, 2022 - present
Highlighted publications
Grant S. 2022. Soviet Nightingales: Care under Communism Cornell University Press
Journal article
Grant S. 2023. Age Matters: health, older people and gerohygiene in the late Soviet Union Medical History: An International Journal for the History of Medicine and Related Sciences, 66 :207-224 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Grant S. 2017. Nursing and the Public Health Legacies of the Russian Revolution. American Journal of Public Health, 107 DOI Author Url Publisher Url Public Url
Grant S. 2015. The American Hospital in Moscow: A Lesson in International Cooperation, 1917-23 MEDICAL HISTORY, 59 :554-574 DOI Author Url Publisher Url
Grant S. 2014. ‘Bolsheviks, Revolution, and Physical Culture’ International Journal for the History of Sport, 31 :724-734 DOI Author Url Publisher Url
Grant S. 2014. ‘Nurses Across Borders: Displaced Russian and Soviet Nurses after World War One and World War Two’ Nursing History Review, 22 :13-13 DOI Publisher Url
Grant S. 2011. The politics and organization of physical culture in the USSR during the 1920s Slavonic and East European Review, 89 :494-515 DOI
Grant S. 2010. The Fizkul'tura generation: Modernizing lifestyles in early Soviet Russia Soviet and Post Soviet Review, 37 :142-165 DOI Publisher Url
Grant S. 2010. Public and Private Physical Culture: The Soviet State and the Construction of the New Person Robinson, Neil . Irish Slavonic Studies, 23 :60-66
Grant S. 2010. The collective agitation of arms and legs: Organising mass physical culture in 1920s Soviet Russia Revolutionary Russia, 23 :93-113 DOI Publisher Url
Book
Grant S. 2022. Geriatrics and Ageing in the Soviet Union: Medical, Political and Social Contexts Scarborough I. Bloomsbury Academic. London Publisher Url
Grant S. 2022. Soviet Nightingales: Care under Communism Cornell University Press
Grant S. 2020. Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions, and Controversies Ryan J. Bloomsbury Academic. London Publisher Url
Grant S. 2017. Russian and Soviet Health Care from an International Perspective: Comparing Practice, Gender and Care, 1880-1960 Grant S. Palgrave Macmillan. London 978-3-319-44170-2 DOI Publisher Url
Grant S. 2013. Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s Routledge 9780415806954
Chapters
Grant S. 2017. Devotion and Revolution: Nursing Values 1917-1970 Willimott A, Neumann M. Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide: Tradition, Rupture, and Modernity Routledge. London
Grant S. 2017. ‘Nurses in the Soviet Union: Explorations of Gender in State and Society’ Melanie Ilic . Palgrave Handbook on Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia Routledge DOI Publisher Url
Grant S. 2016. Creating Cadres of Professional Soviet Nurses, 1936-1941 Grant S. Russian and Soviet Healthcare in International Perspective: Comparing Practice, Gender and Care, 1880-1960 Palgrave Macmillan. London DOI Publisher Url
Grant S. 2016. From war to peace: Russian nurses, 1917-221 Adele Lindenmeyr , Christopher Read , Peter Waldron . Russia's Home Front in War and Revolution, 1914-22: Book 2: The Experience of War and Revolution :251-251 Slavica. Bloomington, Indiana 978-0-89357-426-0 Publisher Url