Research
Language, Education, and Knowledge Politics
My current research examines how Armenian, Russian, and English shape education, knowledge production, and institutional authority in post-Soviet Armenia. I study language policy not only as the regulation of language use but also as a mechanism that structures access to scholarship, higher education, professional mobility, and international participation.
This work asks how Armenia can strengthen Armenian as a language of specialized knowledge while retaining practical access to Russian-language networks and expanding engagement with English-dominated academic and professional institutions. It also considers whether educational internationalization broadens opportunity or creates new inequalities between institutions, regions, and social groups.
Work in progress:
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Koppy, Kate, editors. Teaching Writing in English at the Decolonial Turn in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Under contract with The WAC Clearinghouse and The University Press of Colorado, forthcoming in 2027.
“Between Armenian, Russian, and English: Language Policy, Education, and Knowledge Politics in Post-Soviet Armenia.” Chapter in development for Handbook of Language Policies in the Caucasus and Central Asia, edited by Thomas Weir. Forthcoming in 2027.
“Localizing Justice: Wikipedia, Neutrality, and the Politics of Knowledge in an Armenian Writing Classroom.” Chapter in development for the edited collection Teaching Writing in English at the Decolonial Turn in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Public Memory, Nationalism, and Post-Soviet Space
This strand examines how monuments, maps, films, protest performances, and urban spaces shape public memory and political identity in post-socialist and post-Soviet societies. I am especially interested in how citizens negotiate inherited Soviet narratives and use material and digital forms to challenge or revise official memory.
:
Kotzeva, Elitza. “From Admiring Death Masks to Spray-Painting Communist Monuments, or Citizens Revisiting Collective Memory.” Historical Geography, vol. 52, 2024, pp. 105–135. doi:10.1353/hgo.2024.a990105.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “’Thou Shalt Not Kill,’ or Affect and Ethics in a Spectacle of Distant Suffering: 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War Documentaries.” Eastern European Screen Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, 2025, pp. 1-19. doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2024.2446050
Kotzeva, Elitza. "Counter-Mapping for Resistance and Cultivation of Counter-Memory: The Social Life of Some Nagorno Karabakh Maps." Material Culture Review, vol. 94, no. 2, 2023, Special Issue: Social Lives of Maps. doi.org/10.7202/1102339ar.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “Performing Nationalism: Affective Economies of Protest in Armenia.” Special Issue: The Micropolitics of Delights and Distortions in Contemporary Nationalisms: Pleasure, Performance, and Populist Embodiment. Cultural Studies, forthcoming in 2027.
Gender, War, and Digital Public Culture
My work in feminist rhetoric examines how gender, surveillance, affect, and ethical responsibility operate in wartime and digital communication. These projects focus particularly on Armenia and the broader post-Soviet region.
Published work:
Kotzeva, Elitza. “Face-Shaping Power of the Postfeminist Gaze, or Digital Rhetorical Lateral Surveillance in Armenia.” Cluster Conversation: Talking Back Through Rhetorical Surveillance Studies: Intersectional Feminist and Queer Approaches. Peitho. vol. 27, no. 1, Fall 2024. doi: 10.37514/PEI-J.2024.27.1.09
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Shahnazaryan, Nona, editors. Women in Conflict, War, and Revolution in Post-Soviet Space, forthcoming in 2027.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “Rhetorical Ethics of Humor in War Memes.” Memes and Rhetorical Identity, edited by Derek Sparby. University of Colorado Press, forthcoming in 2026.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “#WeWillWin When We Become Good Citizens, or Hegemonic Masculinity in Armenian War Rhetoric.” Masculinities in the South Caucasus: Forms, Hierarchies and Challenges, edited by Davit Gabunia et al. Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, 2024.
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Nairy Bzdigian, Sona Gevorgyan, and Lilit Khachatryan. “Rhetorical Resilience and Righteous Discontent in Eurasia: Female Students Leading the Way.” Cluster Conversation: Addressing the Barriers between Us and that Future: Feminist Activist Coalition Building in Writing Studies. Peitho. vol. 26, no. 1. Fall 2023.
Public Writing and Environmental Justice
I also study public writing as a form of civic participation, particularly where students and communities translate local knowledge for global audiences. My recent work investigates Wikipedia, climate literacy, and the unequal infrastructures through which knowledge becomes credible and publicly visible.
:
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Irina Ghaplanyan. “Resisting Slow Violence and Re-imagining Sustainability within a Traditional Rural Russian Community in Armenia.” Reconceptualizing Sustainability Literacies: Practices and Possibilities in the Community and Classroom, edited by Katie Silvester and Kaylie Fougerousse. WAC Clearinghouse: Perspectives in Writing Series, forthcoming in 2026.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “From Public Knowledge to Situated Critique: Wikipedia, Climate Literacy, and Environmental Justice in an Armenian Writing Classroom.” Words into Action: Rhetorics to Build a Sustainable Future, edited by Charles Bazerman et al. WAC Clearinghouse: International Exchanges on the Study of Writing, forthcoming in 2027.
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Garabet Kazanjian, and Lilit Khachatryan. “From Sacred to Sacrilegious: Armenian Human-Water Relations.” In Media Res, special issue: Media Seascape and the Criminal Imaginary, Nov. 2021.
Kotzeva, Elitza. “Traveling Back with Time: On the Rhetorical Significance of Dureé.” Intraspection: a Journal of Rhetoric, Culture, and Style, vol. 5, 2022.
Kotzeva, Elitza, and Brent Anders. “Engineering a Dialogue With Klara, or Ethical Invention With Generative AI in the Writing Classroom”. Journal of Academic Writing, vol. 13, no. 2, Dec. 2023, pp. 73-80. doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.989.
Book Chapters
Kotzeva, Elitza. “Cross-Stones.” Writing Artifacts, edited by edited by Cydney Alexis and Hannah J. Rule. Routledge, 2026.
Kotzeva, Elitza. "Queering Bulgarian Pop-Folk: Hybridity, Gaga Feminism, and Defamiliarization in Chalga." The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans, edited by Catherine Baker, 1st ed., Routledge, 2024. doi: 10.4324/9781003328162-33
Kotzeva, Elitza. "Down the Rabbit Hole." Our Body of Work: Embodied Teaching and Administration in Writing Studies, edited by Anna Sciari and Melissa Nicolas, University of Colorado Press, 2022. doi:org/10.7330/9781646422340.c005.1