A literary scholar and language teacher of Slavic languages (Russian, Czech and Bulgarian), Mira Nikolova explores environmental and spatial portrayals in the works of Indigenous Siberian poets such as the Khanty author Maria Vagatova. She is currently working on a manuscript focusing on the depiction of space and place in the works of exiled authors like Joseph Brodsky and the Czechoslovak singer-songwriter Karel Kryl.  

Nikolova co-authored with Kristen Ghodsee the 2015 Social Politics article “Socialist Wallpaper: Popular Education, Bitova Kultura and the Bulgarian Women's Committee, 1968-1990.” More recently, Nikolova was a recipient of the 2023-2024 Sze Family Faculty Fellows Award for Faculty Fellows at Bowdoin College. The award allows select faculty to participate in a year-long program focused on reflective pedagogical practices and course design improvements.  

Nikolova received her Ph.D., in Slavic studies from Brown University and her bachelor’s degree in Russian and psychology from Bowdoin College.  

Before joining the A&S faculty at the University of Virginia, she taught language, literature, film and culture courses for four years at Bowdoin College as a visiting lecturer in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. This fall, Nikolova will teach first- and second-year Russian language courses.