Anna Lawton received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA in 1976. She has been an Associate Professor at Purdue University for 15 years, and since 1987 she has taught at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor. Currently she teaches courses in visual culture and film studies with a focus on Russian cinema. Professor Lawton is a member of the Film Advisory Board at the National Gallery of Art, and has contributed to several of the Gallery’s film programs. Her publications include numerous articles, book chapters, and books such as Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time (Cambridge University Press, 1992), recently reissued as Before the Fall: Soviet Cinema in the Gorbachev Years (NAP, 2004); The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in the Soviet Union, ed. (Routledge,1992); Russian Futurism through Its Manifestoes, with Herbert Eagle, eds. (Cornell University Press, 1988); Imaging Russia 2000: Film and Facts (NAP, 2004).