Dr. Joshua First is a Croft Associate Professor of History & International Studies in the Croft Institute for International Studies and Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
Joshua First is interested in the intersections between cultural and institutions. Previously, he looked at how culture and identity was produced at a Ukrainian film studio, and currently he is examining how Soviet healthcare institutions contended with ideas about biotechnology and cybernetics. He is currently writing a history of Soviet medicine in the period 1960-1990.
Biography
Joshua First is Croft Associate Professor of History and International Studies and specializes in the history of Russia and Ukraine during the 20th and 21st centuries. He came to Mississippi in 2010 after receiving his PhD in History from the University of Michigan. His teaching interests include modern Russia, the Soviet Union, post-war Europe, the welfare state and cinema. Professor First’s latest interests include the history of the Soviet welfare state and the development of health care and public health after Stalin.
Publications
Belonging and Identity During the Soviet Thaw
From the publisher:
Ukrainian Cinema: Belonging and Identity During the Soviet Thaw is the first concentrated study of Ukrainian cinema in English. In particular, historian Joshua First explores the politics and aesthetics of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema during the Soviet 1960s-70s. He argues that film-makers working at the Alexander Dovzhenko Feature Film Studio in Kiev were obsessed with questions of identity and demanded that the Soviet film industry and audiences alike recognize Ukrainian cultural difference.
Education
Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (2008)
B.A. History, University of Missouri-Columbia (2001)