Ellen Rutten explores the interaction between (literary) creativity and digitalisation. Now that digital media allow for an increasingly rigorous perfectionism in everyday life, creative professionals in various disciplines – literature, but also art, design, architecture, music, and fashion – persistently embrace imperfection. In the coming years Rutten will examine this longing for the imperfect and its impact on Russian and transnational developments in literature, art and design. Rutten also leads a research project on social media and cultural memory in post-Soviet space. In her recent research and publications Rutten focuses on Russian literature, new media, design, memory and politics.

Rutten has been working as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway since 2009. In 2010 she was appointed as coordinator of the project Web Wars, a study of social media debates on Soviet memory. Since 2010 Rutten has also been affiliated to the capacity group Slavic Languages and Cultures of the UvA. In addition, Rutten has provided guest lectures at the universities of Oxford, Freiburg, Berlin, and Columbia. Since 2011 Rutten is co-coordinator of the Media and Memory research group of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) and the Institute of Culture and History (ICG) of the University of Amsterdam. After being awarded a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Rutten worked as a researcher and guest lecturer at the Slavonic department of the University of Cambridge from 2007 to 2009. In Cambridge she co-initiated the Russian Cultural Studies Group. Rutten is also co-founder and editor of the peer-reviewed academic journal Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media. She is grantee of a number of research fellowships, including – in cooperation with colleagues from Cambridge, Groningen, Tartu, and Helsinki – a Hera Joint Research Programme grant.