Fellow Focus: Thora Jordt
In this conversation with Pathways Fellow Brooke Luokkala, 2025-26 Undergraduate Humanities Honors Fellow Thora Jordt discusses her thesis project on the remaking of identity among Russian artists following the Russian Civil War and how the Fox Center's 2025-26 research theme "Life/Story" brings our undergraduate fellows together.
Brooke Luokkala: Thanks for joining me, Thora. Could you tell me about your project?
Thora Jordt: My project is about the film "Aelita: Queen of Mars” (1924). It's considered the first Soviet science fiction film. The film itself has a lot to say about the relationship between art and life. It was considered an Americanized film and was given a lot of funding from socialist groups. Germany invested in the production of the film, and this [foreign interest] demonstrates how a lot of people were looking towards Europe and America for technological inspiration. [Russia] was largely a peasant society before, and they were in the process of industrialization.
BL: How does your thesis project fit the Fox Center’s 2025-26 research theme “Life/Story”?
TJ: The people who worked on the film left Russia during the [Russian] Civil War and only returned after the Bolsheviks won the revolution. They were pretty popular before the war but had to restore their reputations as artists after the war. So, as part of my project, I'm also looking at this break in time and how people who had built their lives before the war were able to come back and reinstate their purpose in a new society. For example, the costume and set designer had been a painter before the war. After the war, she shifted to working in theater and film. So I'm looking at the reasons why she might have shifted at this moment in time, how her painting informed her set designs, and also what she learned kind of as an émigré living in Europe, while the Civil War was taking place.
BL: What has been your favorite part about being a Fox Fellow so far?
TJ: I really enjoyed the panel [held during one of our seminar sessions] with the post-graduate fellows. At the end of college, it is normal to feel uncertain about the future. It was good to hear from people who are a little bit ahead of me in life and who have followed so many different paths. It is comforting to know that so many of the upper-level fellows have taken time outside of academia to explore different paths in life.
I also have enjoyed meeting the other undergrads. Everyone has such a different topic, but the theme “Life/Story” is important in bringing us together. It makes me feel less alone in the writing process.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.