Ararat Şekeryan is a PhD candidate at the Department of Slavic Languages and Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Ararat studied Russian and Polish at Istanbul University, Jagiellonian University (Krakow), and Pushkin Institute (Moscow). His doctoral dissertation focuses on the interwar Russian and Turkish relations, with a particular focus on migration and representations of women in visual culture and literature. He also works on Soviet Armenian and Azerbaijani literature and cinema.