Dissertation: Tolstoy in the Public Domain: His Death as a National Narrative.
After Berkeley, William Nickell taught Russian language and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Among his creative projects was a communal apartment built with his students in the college dormitory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIYHqU7JGdM
For the 200 anniversary of Tolstoy’s death, he created a website:
The Death of Tolstoy, Astapovo Station, 1910
http://humweb.ucsc.edu/bnickell/tolstoy/
In 2010, Cornell University Press published his book:
William Nickell, The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910
http://cornellpress.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/william-nickell-in-the-new-york-times/
Since 2011, William Nickel teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.