Edward Waysband was born in Ukraine. He received his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Toronto, the University of Caen-Normandy, Transilvania University of Brașov, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Polish Institute of Advanced Studies in Warsaw, the New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, and at his home university, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He likewise taught at the Hebrew University and held a position of Associate Professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg. Currently he is an Associate Researcher in the Metacritic Centre for Advanced Literary Studies at Babeș-Bolyai University. His primary research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of modernist studies, postcolonial studies, comparative-literature studies, East European, Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Levantine studies. His new project, “Comparative Approach to Hybridity: Modernist Literature of the Mediterranean and Black Sea Port Cities Odesa and Tel Aviv,” combines his interests in Black Sea and Levantine studies.
His publications appeared in Slavic Review, Slavic and East European Journal, Russian Literature, Ab Imperio, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, Partial Answers, and Word and Text. The publication of his book on Russian modernist poets Osip Mandelstam and Vladislav Khodasevich is planned for 2025. His professional academic experience includes work on the refereed journal Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas and Word and Text: A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics, both as a member of the editorial board and advisory board.