Research Statement


My reseach crosses over three different strands:  material culture, feminist rhetoric, and academic writing. In general theoretical terms, I am interested in the relationship between the rhetorical, the ideological, and the material and its change over time.

My current work intersects material field practices and feminist rhetorical studies to examine the way Soviet, post-Soviet, and local rhetorics enmesh to influence gender roles in the social practices of Armenian rural women. In a related feminst strand with a similar regional focus but with differernt methodologies, I am also writing about female surveillance practices in social media. In another social media project, I am exploring the construction of rhetorical ethics through humor in war memes.   

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Co-written with Anders, B. “Engineeering a Dialogue with Klara, or Ethical Invention with Generative AI in the Writing Classroom.”  Journal of Academic Writing.  13 (2). 73-80.

Co-written with Bzdigian, N., Gevorgyan, S., Khachatryan L. “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. 26 (1). Fall 2023. 

Counter-Mapping for Resistance and Cultivation of Counter-Memory: The Social Life of Some Nagorno Karabakh Maps.” Special Issue: Social Lives of Maps.  Material Culture Review. July 2023.

Traveling Back with Time: On the Rhetorical Significance of Dureé.Intraspection: a Journal of Rhetoric, Culture, and Style. Issue 5, 2023.

Book Chapters

“ Queering Bulgarian Pop-Folk: Hybridity, Gaga Feminism, and Defamiliarization in Chalga.”  The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans. Forthcoming in July 2024.

“#WeWillWin When We Become Good Citizens, or Hegemonic Masculinity in Armenian War  Rhetoric.”  Exploring Masculinities in the South Caucuses. Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung: Georgia. Forthcoming in Spring 2024. 

 “Down the Rabbit Hole.” Our Body of Work: Embodied Teaching and Administration in Writing Studies. eds. Anna Sciari and Melissa Nicolas. Boulder: U of Colorado Press, 2022.

Other Publications

In collaboration with Garabet Kazanjian & Lilit Khachatryan, “From Sacred to Sacrilegious: Armenian Human-Water Relations.” Media Seascape and the Criminal Imaginary. In Media Res, November, 2021.


“From Concerto for Sentence by Emiliya Dvoryanova, translated by Elitza Kotzeva.” Review of Contemporary Fiction, 33 (1): 46-51. Dalkey Archive Press, 2013.
Literary Translations

Poetry by poets of the Bulgarian circle New Social Poetry. Apofenie. Volume 7: Justice. June 2019.

Excerpt from Invisibleby NataliyaDeleva. Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation. Fall 2018 Issue. The University of Iowa.

Concerto for Sentence by Emiliya Dvoryanova. Urbana-Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2016. (Bulgarian to English)

“From Concerto for Sentence by Emiliya Dvoryanova, translated by Elitza Kotzeva.” Review of Contemporary Fiction, 33 (1): 46-51. Dalkey Archive Press, 2013.

Born under a Lucky Star by Ilona Lacková. Centre de Recherches Tsiganes, Université “René Descartes”, Paris, France. Sofia: Litavra Publishing, 2000. (Czech to Bulgarian)

Work in Progress

“Stuck Between Traditional, Soviet, and post-Soviet Rhetoric: Armenian Left-behind Rural Women Negotiating Gender Roles.”  Work in progress.

Presentations and Older Scholarship