Kirsten Painter

Kirsten manages the Slavic and East European collections at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, overseeing collection development and selecting all materials in these areas. She serves as the Libraries' liaison to the Russian and East European Studies Department, providing research and instructional support to faculty and students. She is also the principal librarian for all members of the Penn community who are engaged in research in Russian, Slavic, or East European Studies.

Kirsten’s scholarly research focuses on illustrated children’s books, the relationship between poetry and the visual arts, and modernism in Russia and Western Europe. Her book, Flint on a Bright Stone: A Revolution of Precision and Restraint in American, Russian, and German Modernism (Stanford University Press), examines poetic movements of the early twentieth century, especially the works of Anna Akhmatova, H.D., William Carlos Williams, and Rainer Maria Rilke. She has also contributed entries to the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Within librarianship, her specialties include poetry, art, children’s literature, rare books, and digital humanities. She has created exhibits (digital and physical) on Russian poetry, children's book illustration, architecture, and British landscape design.

Prior to joining Penn libraries, Kirsten's previous positions included: Special Collections & Digital Humanities Librarian at Saint Paul University (Ottawa), Digital Collections Intern at the Seattle Art Museum Library, Adjunct Professor of Russian Literature at New York University, Head Librarian at Odyssey Elementary School (Bainbridge Island, WA), and library-student intern in various roles at the University of Washington, in the Slavic Acquisitions Dept., Built Environments Library, and Special Collections. She received her PhD in Russian Literature from Columbia University, MLIS from the University of Washington, and BA in Comparative Literature and Russian Studies from Oberlin College. She also attended the Slavic Library Institute at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.