Staff profile

Current Research

An Ontology of Animal Minds: A History of Russian ‘Zoopsychology’

This research looks at the history of comparative psychology, ethology, animal neuroscience and behavioural ecology in Russia and the USSR. It explores the different ways in which Russian scientists constructed animal mentality, a phenomenon they ambivalently both troubled over and assumed, denied and kept returning to, skirted around, yet could not do without. The current focus is on the history of Soviet primate research, in the broader context of negotiations of the boundary, continuum and relationship between humans and animals.

Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia

The project investigates how children became objects of scientific study, professional expertise and public interest in modern societies, focusing on Russia as a key example. It explores the historical contingencies of the rise and fall of a multiprofessional and crossdisciplinary movement that claimed child development and socialisation as a territory of specialist investigation, including developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and special education, hygiene and pediatrics. The current focus is on juvenile crime, delinquency, and social deviance as a field of knowledge in the context of Russia's modernization and socio-political upheavals between the 1860s and the 1930s.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome enquiries from those wishing to pursue a Masters by Research (MAR) and/or a PhD on topics related to the social and cultural history of the intelligentsia, professions, sciences and education in 19th- and 20th-century Russia. At present I would especially encourage proposals on topics relating to human-animal relations.

• History of knowledge and science in Russia, especially biological, human and social sciences
• History of the intelligentsia, professions, academia and education in Russia
• Human-animal relations in Russia

Authored book

• Byford, A. (2020). Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198825050.001.0001
• Byford, A. (2007). Literary Scholarship in Late Imperial Russia: Rituals of Academic Institutionalization. Legenda

Book review

• Byford, A. (2019). Russian Eugenics in Transnational and Transhistorical Perspective: From Comparison to Translation. Annals of Science, 76(3-4), 355-364
• Byford, A. (2013). Cold War Entanglements of Social Science. Science as Culture, 22(3), 401-406. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2013.768225
• Byford, A. (2009). Mother Russia. Forum for anthropology and culture, 5, 465-470
• Byford, A. (2007). Literary Academia under Soviet Power. Forum for anthropology and culture, 4, 419-421
• Byford, A. (2006). The Russian Intelligentsia Now. Forum for anthropology and culture, 3, 289-292

Chapter in book

• Byford, A. (2020). Pedology as Occupation in the Early Soviet Union. In A. Yasnitsky (Ed.), A history of Marxist psychology : the Golden Age of Soviet science (109-127). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429323423-8
• Byford, A., Doak, C., & Hutchings, S. (2020). Introduction: Transnationalizing Russian Studies. In A. Byford, C. Doak, & S. Hutchings (Eds.), Transnational Russian studies (1-34). Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.311
• Byford, A. (2014). Performing ‘Community’: Russian Speakers in Contemporary Britain. In L. Cairns, & S. Fouz-Hernández (Eds.), Rethinking 'identities' : cultural articulations of alterity and resistance in the new millennium (115-139). Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0353-0607-1
• Byford, A. (2014). Pamiat' o "repressirovannykh naukakh" v istorii Rossii: Sluchai pedologii. In G. Lobacheva (Ed.), Istoricheskaia pamiat’ Rossii : proshloe i nastoiashchee : materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, 11-13 aprelia 2014 goda (16-29). Saratovskii gosudarstvennyi tekhnicheskii universitet
• Byford, A., & Obukhov, A. S. (2014). Razvitie psikhologo-pedagogicheskikh nauk. In A. S. Obukhov, A. M. Fedoseeva, & A. Byford (Eds.), Razygryvaia «soobshchestvo»: Russkoiazychnye migranty sovremennoi Britanii = Performing "community": Russian-speaking migrants in contemporary Britain (23-190). Iurait
• Byford, A. (2009). "The Last Soviet Generation" in Britain. In J. Fernandez (Ed.), Diasporas: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (54-63). Inter-Disciplinary Press

Edited book

• Byford, A., Doak, C., & Hutchings, S. (Eds.). (2019). Transnational Russian Studies. Liverpool University Press
• Byford, A., & Bronnikova, O. (Eds.). (2018). Politics in Post-Soviet Migration. Special issue of Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest, 49 (4). Presses Universitaires de France
• Obukhov, A. S., Fedoseeva, A. M., & Byford, A. (Eds.). (2014). Vvedenie v professiiu: Psikholog obrazovaniia. Iurait
• Bullock, P. R., Byford, A., Nun-Ingerflom, C., Ohayon, I., Rubins, M., & Winestein, A. (Eds.). (2013). Loyalties, Solidarities and Identities in Russian Society, History and Culture. UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)

Journal Article

• Byford, A., Doak, C., & Hutchings, S. (online). Introduction: Russian and Slavonic Studies at the Crossroads: The Implications of the War in Ukraine. Forum for Modern Language Studies, Article cqae042. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae042
• Byford, A., Doak, C., & Hutchings, S. (online). Decolonizing the Transnational, Transnationalizing the Decolonial: Russian Studies at the Crossroads. Forum for Modern Language Studies, Article cqae038. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae038
• Byford, A. (2022). Russia as an Epistemic Frame. Ab imperio, 1, 73-84
• Byford, A. (2020). Studying Those Who Study Children: Children’s Subjectivity between Epistemology and Ethics. Forum for anthropology and culture, 16, 28-37. https://doi.org/10.31250/1815-8927-2020-16-16-13-98
• Byford, A. (2019). Izuchenie tekh, kto izuchaet detei: detskaia sub"ektivnost' mezhdu epistemologiei i etikoi
• Morgunova, O., & Byford, A. (2018). Between Neo-nationalizing Russia and Brexit Britain: The Dilemmas of Russian Migrants’ Political Mobilizations. Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest, 49(4), 129-161
• Byford, A., & Bronnikova, O. (2018). Transnational Exopolities: Politics in Post-Soviet Migration. Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest, 49(4), 5-25
• Byford, A. (2018). Lechebnaia pedagogika: The Concept and Practice of Therapy in Russian Defectology, c. 1880–1936. Medical History, 62(1), 67-90. https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2017.76
• Byford, A. (2017). The Imperfect Child in Early Twentieth-Century Russia. History of Education, 46(5), 595-617. https://doi.org/10.1080/0046760x.2017.1332248
• Byford, A. (2016). Imperial Normativities and the Sciences of the Child: The Politics of Development in the USSR, 1920s-1930s. Ab imperio, 2016(2), 71-124. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2016.0031
• Byford, A. (2016). Sozdavaia "modernost"' = Doing "Modernity". Новое литературное обозрение. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 140(4), 65-67
• Byford, A. (2016). Trauma and Pathology: Normative Crises and the Child Population in Late Tsarist Russia and the Early Soviet Union, 1904-1924. Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 9(3), 450-469. https://doi.org/10.1353/hcy.2016.0070
• Byford, A. (2016). V. M. Bekhterev in Russian Child Science, 1900s-1920s: “Objective Psychology” / “Reflexology” as a Scientific Movement. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 52(2), 99-123. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.21775
• Byford, A., & Mondry, H. (2015). Love, Service and Sacrifice: Narratives of Dogs and Children in the Soviet 1930s. Australian Slavonic and East European studies, 29(1-2), 63-89
• Byford, A. (2015). Poniatiia subnormy i patologii v istorii rossiiskoi nauki o rebenke. Вопросы психологии. Voprosy psihologii, 1, 111-122
• Byford, A. (2014). The Mental Test as a Boundary Object in Early-20th-Century Russian Child Science. History of the Human Sciences, 27(4), 22-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695114527598
• Byford, A. (2014). Razygryvaia «soobshchestvo»: Russkoiazychnye migranty sovremennoi Britanii = Performing "community": Russian-speaking migrants in contemporary Britain. Новое литературное обозрение. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 127(3), 377-395
• Byford, A. (2013). Roditel', uchitel' i vrach: k istorii ikh vzaimootnoshenii v dele vospitaniia i obrazovaniia v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. = Parent, Teacher, Doctor: Towards a History of their Interactions in Matters of Upbringing and Education in Pre-revolutionary Russia. Новые российские гуманитарные исследования. Novye rossijskie gumanitarnye issledovaniâ, 8,
• Byford, A. (2013). Parent Diaries and the Child Study Movement in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia. Russian Review, 72(2), 212-241. https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.10689
• Byford, A. (2013). Zagrobnaia zhizn’ “nauki” pedologii: k voprosu o znachenii “nauchnykh dvizhenii” (i ikh istorii) dlia sovremennoi pedagogiki. Преподаватель XXI век. Prepodavatelʹ XXI vek, 1(1), 43-54
• Byford, A. (2012). The Russian Diaspora in International Relations: “Compatriots” in Britain. Europe-Asia Studies, 64(4), 715-735. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2012.660764
• Byford, A. (2010). Evraziia, prishedshaia v dvizhenie. Antropologičeskij forum Антропологический форум (Print), 13, 317-323
• Byford, A. (2009). "Poslednee sovetskoe pokolenie" v Velikobritanii. Новое литературное обозрение. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 64(2), 96-116
• Byford, A. (2008). Turning Pedagogy into a Science: Teachers and Psychologists in Late Imperial Russia (1897-1917). Osiris, 23(1), 50-81. https://doi.org/10.1086/591869
• Byford, A. (2008). Psychology at High School in Late Imperial Russia (1881-1917). History of Education Quarterly, 48(2), 265-297. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2008.00143.x
• Byford, A. (2006). Professional Cross-Dressing: Doctors in Education in Late Imperial Russia (1881-1917). Russian Review, 65(4), 586-616
• Byford, A., & Jones, P. (2006). Policies and Practices of Transition in Soviet Education from the Revolution to the End of Stalinism. History of Education, 35(4-5), Article 419-426. https://doi.org/10.1080/00467600600713070
• Byford, A. (2005). The Rhetoric of Aleksandr Veselovskii’s “Historical Poetics” and the Autonomy of Literary Studies in Late Imperial Russia. Slavonica, 11(2), 115-132
• Byford, A. (2005). Initiation to Scholarship: The University Seminar in Late Imperial Russia. Russian Review, 64(2), 299-323
• Byford, A. (2004). Between Literary Education and Academic Learning: The Study of Literature at Secondary School in Late Imperial Russia (1860s-1900s). History of Education, 33(6), 637-660. https://doi.org/10.1080/0046760042000275502
• Byford, A. (2003). S. A. Vengerov: The Identity of Literary Scholarship in Late Imperial Russia. Slavonic and East European Review, 81(1), 1-31
• Byford, A. (2003). The Politics of Science and Literature in French and Russian Criticism of the 1860s. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 56(4), 210-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/00397700309598325
• Byford, A. (2003). The Gogol Jubilee of 1909
• Byford, A. (2002). The Figure of the “Spectator” in the Theoretical Writings of Brecht, Diderot, and Rousseau. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 56(1), 25-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/00397700209598311
• Byford, A. (2000). Art and Reality in Zamiatin’s Poetic Theory. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 54(3), 139-158. https://doi.org/10.1080/00397700009598295

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Byford, A. (2017). What's Left? A Century in Revolution
• Byford, A. (2017). Revolution and Science under the Bolsheviks
• Byford, A. (2012). Russia
• Byford, A. (2005). Russian Literary Scholarship, 1830-1917