Head of the Comparative Literature Department at Russian State University for the Humanities, Editor-in-Chief of the academic and critical bimonthly Voprosy Literatury, Literary Secretary for the Russian Booker prize.

His fields of interests include comparative literature and historical poetics, genre theory, European Renaissance, Anglo-Russian affinities, English and Russian poetry.

His major publications are: V sodruzhestve setil. Poesya Nikolaya Aseeva (Among the Friendly Planets: Poetry of Nikolai Aseev; M., 1985), Myslyachshaya Musa. Otkrytie prirody v poesii 18 veka (The Reflective Muse: The Return to Nature in 18th Century Poetry; 1989), Istorya zarubezhnoi litaratury: Epokha Vozrozhdenya. Uchebnik dlya vusov. T. 1-2 (World Literature: Renaissance V. 1-2: A Book for University Students; 2001; 2nd ed., 2009; 3rd ed., 2014); Delo vkusa. Kniga o sovremennoi poesii (Matter of taste. A book on contemporary poetry; 2007); Poetika i/ili romparativistika. Angliiskaya literatura glazami istoricheskoi poetiki (Poetics and/or comparative study. English literature through the Eyes of Historical Poetics (2010); Shekspir (Shakespeare: A Life; 2013). Two volumes of Alexander Veselovskii’s Historical poetics were collected, prefaced and commented by I. Shaitanov (2006, 2010).

He won awards from literary journals and academic institutions; Veselovskii prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences (2014). Publications in English, German, French, Chinese, et als.