OFF-CAMPUS STUDY IN RUSSIA: Informational session during special edition of Russian Table
We invite you to join us for an informational session about off-campus study in Russia on Friday, October 12th, at our regularly scheduled Russian Table (Русский стол is held Fridays during the lunch hour in the new Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, in room 224C, which is one of the reserved dining spaces on the Mezz level of the dining hall (the furthest one from the top of the stairs; it overlooks the courtyard). We invite speakers of Russian at every level to join us for informal Russian conversation. Individuals not on board are guests of the Russian Department.. Several student-veterans of past programs, as well as faculty advisers, will share their perspectives about this valuable, life-changing experience. Students unable to attend this session should also feel free to contact Todd Armstrong, program adviser for these programs—or any member of the Russian department.
RUSSIAN DEPARTMENT T-SHIRTS!
Last spring the Russian Department SEPC designed and ordered a number of t-shirts with the image and slogan to the left (that’s the Russian Винни Пух!). If you would like a t-shirt, please contact Todd Armstrong [ARMSTRON] or Kelly Herold [HEROLDK]. The price is a reasonable 295 rubles ($10 US), while they last!
Family Weekend Russian Lecture: “Post-Soviet Cinderellas: Beauty, Femininity, and Consumer Culture in Russian Adolescent Literature for Girls”
On Friday, September 28th, Grinnellians learned about new trends in young adult literature at a lecture presented by Larissa Rudova Yale B. and Lucille D. Griffith Professor in Modern Languages, Professor of Russian and Chair, Department of German and Russian at Pomona College. In her talk, Professor Rudova explained how “in Russia, girl fiction began to thrive during the first decade of the twenty-first century and, beside moral and pedagogical messages, also articulated the ideology of consumerism and glamour that captured the imagination of Russians under the first presidency of Vladimir Putin (2000-2008). Professor Rudova’s talk addressed the history of the relationship between beauty and gender construction in Soviet children’s literature and culture and analyzed how new economic and cultural realities affect it in the post-Soviet era. Professor Rudova’s talk was sponsored by the department of Russian, GWSS, the Center for the Humanities, and the Center for International Studies.
Czech Scholar presents “The Sudety/Sudetenland Experience: The Palimpsest Memory of Silesia”
Dr. Roman Sukač, of the Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic, came to Grinnell College on Monday, September 24, under the sponsorship of the Russian, Central, and Eastern European Studies Concentration, in collaboration with Professor Marc Greenberg of the University of Kansas Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies. He first studied geology and prepared for the life of a mining engineer at the very moment when mineral mining in the former Czechoslovakia had become unprofitable and collapsed as a viable industry. He then pursued the study of Indo-European linguistics, earning his doctorate from the Masaryk University in Brno in 2010. He is currently collaborating with Kansas University professor Marc L. Greenberg on a book, A Historical Phonology of the Czech Language, which is to appear in the series Historical Phonology of the Slavic Languages. Dr. Sukač also has an avocational interest in Silesian history and was a collaborative author in a recent book on Everyday Life in Czechoslovakia 1948-1967, which won the Magnesia Litera Prize for a work in history in 2012. He is also learning Yiddish in preparation for a project on Yiddish texts from Silesia.
Novosti would also like to add that Professor Greenberg is the father of Lea Greenberg ’14
Alumni Scholar C. Cain Elliott ’06 presents “Nationalism as a Theological Problem: Erik Peterson, Jacob Taubes, and the Kingdom of God.”
On Wednesday, September 5, C. Cain Elliott ’06 came to Grinnell under the auspices of the Alumni Scholar Program, in which recent graduates of the College who are active in academia are invited to the College to present their scholarship, renew acquaintances with faculty, and to meet current students. Cain graduated from the Department of Religious Studies with a concentration in Russian, Central, and Eastern European Studies. He will defend his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in October (2012). He currently teaches at the Centre for Social Studies and Graduate School for Social Research (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences), is an adjunct lecturer in Philosophy at the American Studies Center of the University of Warsaw, and is a visiting lecturer in Sociology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of ResPublica Nowa and Visegrad Insight. Cain gave a talk that concerns his next project, an examination of the intersection of theology and nationalism. We were thrilled to have him back, and hope to see him again soon—if not here, then in Warsaw or other points east!
Panel Discussion on Pussy Riot
On Monday, September 3rd, four Grinnell College faculty members participated in an interdisciplinary panel discussion co-sponsored by Russian and RCEES: “Hooliganism motivated by Religious Hatred” ~ Putin’s Russia and the trial of Pussy Riot.” We thank Edward Cohn, History, Astrid Henry, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Kelly Herold, Russian, and Danielle Lussier, Political Science for their helping a standing-room-only crowd in JRC 101 understand recent events in Russia. For more on the event, see the Scarlet and Black article “Riot in the JRC.” Hilary Bown ’02 also offered insights about Pussy Riot in an article published in the IP Journal of the The German Council on Foreign Relations: Pussy Riot auf Deutsch/Similar laws, different systems: A protest in Cologne offers a German/Russian comparison. Поздравляем!
