Dr. Probstein has developed several Canvas programs for Touro in literature, poetry, and other writing-related courses. He has also won the Teaching Recognition Award from Touro in 2016 and 2020, as well as Best Teacher of the Year from Lander Institute Moscow in 2011 for his video conferencing and online courses.
Outside of Touro, Dr. Probstein is a bilingual Russian-American poet, scholar, and translator of poetry. He has published two books of literary criticism, twelve books of poetry in Russian and one in English, translated more than a dozen poetry volumes, and has compiled and edited more than 30 books and anthologies of poetry as well as about 500 publications. His essays and poems have been published in numerous publications, including the Atlanta Review, the McNeese Review, and the International Literary Quarterly. Several of his translations were runners up for awards, including his translation of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which was shortlisted for the Russian Poetry Prize in 2020, and his translation of Charles Bernstein’s book Sign Under Test, which was shortlisted for the Russian Translator’s Guild Master Award in 2020.
Professor Probstein is also a speaker at numerous national and international conferences, and has been featured on the podcast New Books in Jewish Studies with Ari Barbalat.
Education
- BA, Minsk Linguistic University (Belarus)
- MA, Minsk Linguistic University (Belarus)
- MA, Graduate Center, CUNY
- PhD, Moscow State University for the Humanities (Russia)
Honors and Awards
- Translation of Charles Bernstein’s book Sign Under Test (Moscow, Russian Gulliver, 2020) was short-listed for the Russian Translator’s Guild Master Award.
- Translation of T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was short-listed for the Russian Poetry Prize 2020.
- Complete annotated edition of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays (1120 pp. St. Petersburg: Azbuka–antiqua, 2019; 4000 copies) long-listed for the Russian Guild of Translators Master Award, 2019.
- Translation of John Ashbery’s “Ut Pictura Poesis” and other poems was shortlisted for the Russian Poetry Prize 2018/2019.
- Translations of Osip Mandelstam into English were chosen as a runner-up to The Gabo Prize for Literature in
- Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts (2016)
- Best translation book in RF and second-best poetry book of the year 2003.
- Teaching Recognition Award for 2020 and 2016, Touro College, NYC.
- Best teacher of the year 2011, Lander Institute Moscow, Touro College, for video conferencing and online courses.
Publications
- Probstein, I. E. (2020). Louise Glück: Mythological Feminism and an Attempt to Overcome Antagonism. Literature of the Americas, 9, 316–324. https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2020-9-316-324
- Probstein, I. E. (2020, December 10). To the 190th birth anniversary of Emily Dickinson: Certificate for Immortality. Tonkaya Sreda, 15(2002).
- Probstein, I. E. (2020). T. S. Eliot’s Discovery of the “Old World” 1910–1922. Zinziver, 49–74. https://magazines.gorky.media/zin/2020/6/t-s-eliot-otkrytie-starogo-sveta-1910-1922.html
- Probstein, I. E. (2020). The Poetry and Poetics of Olga Sedakova: Origins, Philosophies, Points of Contention. Slavic Review, 79(2), 487–490. https://doi.org/10.1017/slr.2020.141
- Probstein, I. E. (2020, April 9). Coronaverse: The poems of Our Time: My otnyne vse koronovany [We are now all crowned], Paradox, [Kak budto iz mlechnosti] “As if from Milk-ness”, Voyut sireny I voyut sobaki [Sirens are howling and dogs are howling], Nautro rastsveli narcissi [Daffodils bloomed in the morning], My zhivyem v parallel’nykh mirakh [we live in parallel worlds], Vsya eta ispoved’ v ispodnyem [All that confession in underwear], Komendantskii chas [Curfew], Tuba Mirum, Podopytnoye chelovechestvo [humanity guinea pigs], Naden’te maski! My na maskaradye [Put on your masks! We are at a masquerade],V epokhu samoizolyatsii [In the epoch of self-isolation], Fevral’. Bliny. Coronavirus [February. Pancakes. Coronavirus]. Coronaverse. http://coronaviruspoetry.com/ian-probstein/
- Berstein, C. (2020, March 3). Translation into Russian of Asylum, a long poem (1975), “Autonomy is Jeopardy” (from Republics of Reality, 1975–1995), How Empty is My Bread Pudding (from Reacalculating, 2013), “Why I Am Not a Hyppie”, “I Used to Be a Plastic Bottle”, “S’i’ fosse” (after Cecco Angiolieri), “All Poetry is Loco,” Apoplexy, a long poem, “God’s Silence”, “My Luck” (from Near/Miss, 2019), “Affect Theory,” “Clouds After Rain” (from new poems, 2019) (I. E. Probstein, Trans.). Liberal Mission Foundation. http://liberal.ru/new-york-room-by-jn-probstein/charlz-bernstin-avangard---postoyannoe-obnovlenie
- Probstein, I. E. (2020). On the Nobel Prize 2020 Winner: Strength and Weakness of Louise Glück. Liberal Mission Foundation.
Memberships and Affiliations
- T.S. Eliot Society, MLA
Hobbies
Music, opera, art
