Sara Pankenier Weld

Sara has taught at UC Santa Barbara since 2012. Her teaching encompasses Russian and East European literature, culture and theory; comparative literature; and children's literature and childhood studies. 

Sara's former Ph.D. advisees include Dr. Tegan Raleigh (Oregon State University), Dr. Katie Lateef-Jan (Branson School), and Dr. Arpi Movsesian (Notre Dame University).

She has hosted multiple  international scholars, including Zheng Ren (Tsinghua University, China) with funding from China Scholarship Council in 2023-2024 and Marina Bernardo Flórez (University of Barcelona) with funding from Fulbright in 2023.

C LIT 100 Introduction to Comparative Literature

C LIT 128A Children's Literature

C LIT 188 Literature and Exile

C LIT 189 First-Person Narrative: Childhood and Autobiography

C LIT 200 Critical Childhood Studies

C LIT 200 Russian Formalism, Semiotics, and Bakhtin

C LIT 210 Proseminar in Comparative Literature

SLAV 33 Russian Culture: Understanding Russia

SLAV 35 Short Fiction by Major Russian, East European & Eurasian Writers

SLAV 117A Major Russian Writers: Pushkin

SLAV 117G Major Russian Writers: Dostoevsky

SLAV 117J Major Russian Writers: Bulgakov

SLAV 117I Major Russian Writers: Nabokov

SLAV 124 Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry

INT 84CO Channel Islands Literature: The Lone Woman of San Nicolas (Island of the Blue Dolphins)

INT 84ZE Crime and Punishment

INT 94QQ Russian Animated Film

INT 185FT Reframing the Folktale