Professor Zholkovsky researches Russian literary studies, with a focus on Soviet Aesopian "art of adaptation", the poetics of bad writing and intertextuality. He studies the power of grammar in Russian literature, authoring numerous publications that examine how modern Russian writers are engaged in reinterpretive dialogue with previous generations of Russian literary masters. He also studies Russian writers whose works span generations, including Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Babel and Akhmatova, among others.