Rory Finnin

Notre Dame Collegiate Mission Chair in Ukrainian Studies and Global Affairs, and Director of the Ukrainian Studies Hub

Rory Finnin is the Notre Dame Collegiate Mission Chair in Ukrainian Studies and Global Affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and the director of Notre Dame's Ukrainian Studies Hub at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Finnin also serves as a core-affiliated faculty member of the Nanovic Institute. 

Before coming to Notre Dame, Finnin was professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he established the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program in 2008. 

Finnin has curated and organized over 40 exhibitions and cultural events, advancing public understanding of Ukraine’s language, history and society in the UK and beyond. His research focuses on the interplay between culture and identity in Ukraine, with particular attention to Crimea and Crimean Tatar literature, and his broader interests include nationalism studies, solidarity studies, and cultural memory in the region of the Black Sea.

Finnin holds a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and comparative literature from Columbia University. He is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine, 1995-97). Finnin has published extensively, and his book, "Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity" (University of Toronto Press), has received eight international awards, including the 2024 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, which is administered by the Nanovic Institute. Finnin has also served as head of the department of Slavonic studies and chair of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies.