Anna Barker, PhD
Biography:
A native speaker of Russian and Hungarian, Professor Barker completed her PhD in Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at the UI in 2002 and teaches in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Russian Program. Her current courses include Introduction to Russian Culture, Russian Literature in Translation, and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Her main areas of interest are the Napoleonic era; 19th-century Russian and European literature, history, and culture; translation; women writers and artists; and opera. In commemoration of the upcoming bicentennial of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Professor Barker is curating the exhibition From War and Peace to Anna Karenina: Tolstoy at 200 at the University of Iowa Main Library Gallery (Fall, 2028) and preparing the publication of Twenty Tales from Tolstoy: For the Young and the Young at Heart (Ice Cube Press, 2028). Her translations and literary criticism have appeared in The 91st Meridian, International Accents, and Women and Translation (University of Ottawa Press, 2011).
In 2025 Professor Barker was invited to give a talk at the 22nd International Napoleonic Congress in Paris, France and present as a keynote speaker at the Napoleonic Historical Society Conference in San Diego, California. Her extensive Napoleonic research is highlighted in her book 13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa: Musings on the Edge of the French Empire (Ice Cube Press, 2025).
Book information:
Born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte was the ruler of Iowa between 1800 and 1803 when he served as the First Consul of the French Republic. Iowa City, Iowa, evolved out of the 1838 settlement named after him — Napoleon, Iowa — the location marked today by Napoleon Park, off Napoleon Lane, just south of Iowa City. The book illuminates aspects of Iowa’s French past, such as cities named after the Napoleonic battles of Marengo and Waterloo, and explains the mystery of Iowa’s distinctly French-looking flag. Along the way, the author muses on other Napoleon-related matters, such as Empire waist gowns, Goethe’s and Byron’s Bonapartism, the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna, and to what extent Europe’s current internal contradictions have been impacted by its Napoleonic past. The book’s introduction was written by the President of the International Napoleonic Society J. David Markham, Knight of the Order of the French Academic Palms.
“Only connect,” E. M. Forster’s famous advice to young novelists, is what animates Anna Barker’s astonishing travelogue in the footsteps of Napoleon Bonaparte, which takes her from Napoleon, Iowa (the original name of Iowa City, the first UNESCO City of Literature) to a wide range of places touched in some way by the legendary military figure whose imperial designs shaped, for good and ill, the modern world. Ms. Barker deploys her encyclopedic knowledge of history and literature, cinema and cuisine, and all things Napoleonic in service to a capacious vision of any meaning-making enterprise. She proves to be a delightful travel companion and a witty storyteller whose enthusiasm for her subject is infectious. Napoleon is everywhere.
—Christopher Merrill, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Director, International Writing Program, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood (2017) and On the Road to Lviv (2023)
Anna Barker’s 13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa contains a dazzling amount of insight into Napoleon’s life from every angle imaginable: his influence on fashion, on Dostoevsky and Byron, on politics and the world order from Easten Europe all the way to Iowa. Barker’s prose sparkles, and her enthusiasm for All Things Napoleon is genuinely contagious.”
— Wyn Cooper, poet, lyricist, novelist, author of Postcards from the Interior (2005), Mars Poetica (2018), and Way Out West (2022)
“Napoleon. A thousand cannons sleep in that name,” said the German poet Heinrich Heine. If you want to hear those cannons, read Anna Barker’s book 13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa.
—Thomas Schuler, International Napoleon expert, author of Wir sind auf einem Vulkan: Napoleon und Bayern (2015) and Auf Napoleons Spuren: Eine Reise durch Europa (2021)
Put on your bicorn tourist hat and follow Dr. Barker’s beautiful prose on the steps of Napoleonic memory through Goethe, Byron, Puccini, Dumas, and ABBA. Her collection of essays inspired by the Marengos, Bonapartes, and Napoleons of Europe and Iowa is breathtaking and helps the reader engage with the idea that Napoleon is everywhere!
—Dr. Marco Cabrera Geserick, Director, Latin American Studies, Northern Arizona University, author of The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity and Collective Memory in Central America (2019)
Since 2003, Professor Barker has taught UI courses in the Department of English, Comparative Literature, University College, the Honors Program, and the Tippie College of Business Marketing Program and organized a diverse array of literary programs in collaboration with UI Libraries Special Collections, UI Stanley Museum of Art, UI Old Capitol Museum, UI Symphony, UI Opera Studies Forum, UI International Programs WorldCanvass, UI Senior College, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, Iowa City Book Festival, Music IC, FilmScene, Riverside Theatre, and Cedar Rapids Opera.
A 2011-2014 Research Fellow at the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Professor Barker has given presentations on Russian literature and translation at numerous conferences, including at Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy Literary Estate and Museum, Tula Region, Russia. In 2021 she initiated a Russian literature lecture series, Russian Literary Journeys with Anna, at the Minneapolis Museum of Russian Art. Her lectures on Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky have been attended by hundreds of literature enthusiasts.
In collaboration with the UI Libraries Special Collections, Professor Barker curated the exhibitions Goya’s Disasters of War and Tolstoy’s War and Peace: A Dialogue Between Art and Literature (2019) and From Revolutionary Outcast to a Man of God: Dostoevsky at 200 (2021). The Dostoevsky exhibition attracted over 6,000 visitors.
Professor Barker publishes essays and literary commentary on Substack. Her guided readings dedicated to the exploration of world literature in a historical and cultural context can be found at:
https://annasthinkingcap.substack.com/
Her 2024-2026 Anna’s Thinking Cap Substack commentary focuses on the works of Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons), Dumas (The Three Musketeers and its sequels), and Jókai Mór (The Heartless Man's Sons or A kőszívű ember fiai).
Since 2020, Professor Barker has offered 17 online tutorials guiding a global community of readers through literary classics such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, Paradise Lost, Madame Bovary, Les Misérables, War and Peace, and The Brothers Karamazov. Her tutorials can be accessed at:
https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/anna-barker-classics/
Notably, her 2021 War and Peace tutorial reached thousands of readers on 5 continents, 25 countries, with participants reading the novel in 9 languages. Since 2020, her tutorials have reached over 10,000 readers around the globe.
She writes Anna’s Thinking Cap, a monthly Iowa City Press-Citizen column, focusing on Iowa’s French and Napoleonic past, Iowa history, and 19th century European and US history.
Her opera reviews are published in the London-based Opera Magazine.
Professor Barker has served on the UI Stanley Museum of Art Members Council (2011-2017), and the boards of Riverside Theatre (2016-2019), Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature (2019-2025), Cedar Rapids Opera (2021-2024), Orchestra Iowa (since 2024), and the Stories Project (since 2024).
Current UI courses:
- Introduction to Russian Culture (https://myui.uiowa.edu/my-ui/courses/details.page?ci=171194&id=998951)
- Russian Literature in Translation (https://myui.uiowa.edu/my-ui/courses/details.page?ci=171181&id=1013156)
- Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (https://myui.uiowa.edu/my-ui/courses/details.page?ci=171191&id=1001025)
Research areas:
- Russian Literature and Culture
- 19th Century European History
- Napoleonic Era
- Russian
- Russian Literature and Culture
- 19th Century European History
- Napoleonic Era
