Chernetsky is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages, Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from University of Pennsylvania in 1996. His research interests include Ukrainian and Russian literature, and cultural aspects of globalization, postcolonial theory, and gender and feminist studies. He recently finished writing his first monograph that discusses the contemporary literature and culture of the two largest Slavic nations, Russia and Ukraine, and places them in the context of the global-scale paradigm shift associated with the notions of post-modernity and post-coloniality. In addition to his essays on various aspects of modern Ukrainian and Russian literature, Chernetsky has also published translations into English and Russian of works by Yuri Andrukhovych, Petro Karmanskyi, Vasyl Makhno, Oksana Zabuzhko and others.
His research project at HURI is a reflection of a key aspiration of his academic endeavors - to help familiarize intellectual audiences in the West with modern Ukrainian literature and culture, and thereby to bring Ukrainian literature and culture into closer contact with its counterparts elsewhere around the globe. He will be studying a number of modern Ukrainian writers in close comparison with selected representatives of other literatures: Vasyl Stefanyk with Joseph Conrad (England), Olha Kobylianska with Willa Cather (USA), Volodymyr Vynnychenko with Witold Gombrowicz (Poland), Mykola Khvylovyi with Frantz Fanon (France), Viktor Domontovych with Konstantin Vaginov (Russia), Yuri Andrukhovych with Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba), and Oksana Zabuzhko with Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia).
Chernetsky will be at HURI for eight months beginning in January. His fellowship is funded by the Ukrainian Studies Fund, Inc. endowed gift in support of research in Ukrainian Studies.