Teaching Russian language, Anna Aydinyan always emphasizes the importance of cultural context in the life of a language, and usefulness of exposure to different media and genres in language acquisition. In her classroom, she uses poetry, film, animation, music and drama, and engages her students in lively discussions, educational games, and creative role play.

Her research combines literary studies with an inquiry into the cultural, social, philosophical, and political issues. She studies Russian culture in the framework of comparative colonialisms, and examines twentieth-century Russian reconsiderations of the country’s imperial past, creating a dialogue between two scholarly traditions that have rarely been considered together: late formalism, with its preoccupation with center and periphery, and post-colonialism.