February 2009 Newsletter
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TheAATSEEL NEWSLETTER American Association of Teachers of Slavic & East European Languages Contents Message from the President ...............3 Letter from the Editor ...........................3 Recent Publications ..............................3 2008 AATSEEL Awards .......................4 Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Grammar But Were Afraid to Ask ......................................8 Belarusica .............................................10 Russian at Work ..................................11 Cross Cultural Communications .....14 Member News .....................................15 Graduate Student Forum ...................16 Czech Corner .......................................18 Psychology of Language Learning .............................................20 Summer Programs ..............................23 Employment Opportunities ..............27 Professional Opportunities ...............27 Volume 52 Issue 1 February 2009 AATSEEL NEWSLETTER Vol. 52, Issue 1 February 2009 AATSEEL NEWSLETTER EDITORIAL STAFF AATSEEL POINTS OF CONTACT Editor: BETTY LOU LEAVER President: Assistant Editor: ANNA JACOBSON CARYL EMERSON Contributing Editors: VALERY BELYANIN Princeton University ELENA DENISOVA-SCHMIDT [email protected] President-Elect: ALINA ISRAELI NANCY CONDEE ALLA NEDASHKIVSKA University of Pittsburgh MILA SASKOVA-PIERCE [email protected] RACHEL STAUFFER Past President: MOLLY THOMASY SIBELAN FORRESTER NINA WIEDA Swarthmore College CURT WOOLHISER [email protected] Vice-Presidents: NL Coordinates: JULIE BUCKLER Editor: [email protected] Harvard University [email protected] Assistant Editor: [email protected] JULIE A. CASSIDAY Layout/Advertising: [email protected] Williams College AATSEEL Office: [email protected] LYNNE DEBENEDETTE PATRICIA ZODY Brown University Executive Director, AATSEEL [email protected] P. O. Box 569 KEITH LANGSTON Beloit, WI 53512-0569 USA University of Georgia Phone: 608-361-9697 [email protected] Fax: 608-363-7129 JANE SHUFFELTON E-mail: [email protected] Brighton HS, Rochester, NY (retired) [email protected] Layout/Advertising: CDL Services BORIS WOLFSON Amherst College Submitting Copy: [email protected] Editor, SLAVIC & EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL: (1) Foreign languages are accommodated if prepared on Ma- GERALD JANECEK cIntosh with a truetype or postscript font that can be shared. University of Kentucky (2) Eps or pdf with embedded fonts, Indesign, PageMaker, [email protected] and Quark Express documents can be accommodated. Editor, AATSEEL NEWSLETTER: BETTY LOU LEAVER (3) Please do not double-space between sentences in elec- [email protected] tronic submissions. Conference Program Committee Chair: (4) Please query the editor about formatting, content, graph- ALEXANDER BURRY ics, or language. Ohio State University [email protected] (5) The AATSEEL Newsletter is not copyrighted. Authors Executive Director: wishing to protect their contributions should copyright their PATRICIA L. ZODY materials. Beloit College (6) Full specifications are available at the AATSEEL web site. [email protected] Conference Manager: DIANNA MURPHY University of Wisconsin-Madison AATSEEL Web site [email protected] For current online information about AATSEEL Web Master: DAVID GALLOWAY AATSEEL and its activities, visit AATSEEL Hobart and William Smith Colleges on the web: [email protected] http://www.aatseel.org 2 February 2009 Vol. 52, Issue 1 AATSEEL NEWSLETTER zation at minimal cost and to maximal Condee. I won’t tell you what it is so Message from the benefit. The Newsletter will be easier that you are enticed to come on back and AATSEEL President to access and itself more interactive. read the next issue of the newsletter. Increasingly, as North American Slav- And now, as the new semester It is a truism in our North American ists interact, co-publish, and co-teach begins, I wish you fair sailing through Slavic field, one legacy of our Cold War with our professional counterparts in the any rough waters out there. I am sure origins, that “troubled times for Russia countries and cultures we study, there that many of you are experiencing and Central Europe are good times for are no objects left, only subjects. This the effect of the economic times on Russian Studies.” Ideological foes are is a thrilling Bakhtinian truth. Thanks your programs. State universities in closely watched, marketable as “news,” in advance for your loyalty, patience, California -- in fact, the entire state of and programs that study them are well and long-term hard work for the future California -- have just been declared funded. Enrollment grows. When the of our field. bankrupt. Let’s hope that we will be threat recedes (as it appeared to do in able to discuss an upward swing in the 1989) or battle lines become messily Caryl Emerson April newsletter. complex (as during Putin’s reign), at- tention moves to other fronts. Today we Letter from the Editor All the best for a great spring! are all in difficult times, but AATSEEL BLL in 2009, as the more compact wing of Dear one and all, the Slavic profession specializing in the It was a pleasure to see those of you creative humanities and in pedagogy, I ran into at this year’s annual meeting is in a strong position to challenge this in San Francisco, home turf for me. I RECENT topical, crisis-driven, enemy-oriented always enjoy having the conference in mindset. San Francisco, not only because it is PUBLICatIONS To this end the Executive Council near home but also because San Fran- is planning a number of innovations, cisco is both a great conference city The Recent Publications column in- first of all in our annual conference (this and a great city in and of itself. I hope cludes books published in 2008-2009. December 2009 in Philadelphia). In ad- those who came to the conference took Authors and publishers are invited to dition to the usual panels, roundtables, advantage of the stores at Russian hill submit information about their new and teaching forums, we are instituting -- and even the churches. There is a large publications. some pre-enrolled workshops (on new Russian community in San Francisco, as personalities, prizewinning books, pro- many of you know. For those whom I Culture fessional skills) and “master classes.” did not see, I will look forward to see- Lianeri, Alexandra, & Zajko, Vanda, The good response to poetry readings ing you at the next annual meeting in editors. 2009. Translation and the and film screenings in San Francisco Philadelphia. Classic: Identity as Change in the encourages us to repeat those events. We The most significant news I have to could be more active inviting Russian relate is the return of the newsletter to History of Culture (Classical Pres- nationals and cultural administrators a paper format as of this coming fall. I ences). Oxford, UK: Oxford Univer- to our conference activities (for ex- believe that you will have the opt-out sity Press. ample: the new director of Pushkinskii option if you wish to have it. There Masing-Delic, Irene. 2009. Exotic Mos- dom, Vsevolod Bagno, has expressed will also continue to be a pdf avail- cow under Western Eyes: Essays on interest). A great deal more can be ac- able for those who prefer to receive Culture, Civilization and Barbarism complished through our redesigned, the newsletter this way and for anyone (Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the upgraded website. But first it would help who happens to hear about AATSEEL Twentieth Century). Academic Stud- to regain some weight. A major drive and wants to take a look at the newslet- ies Press. is on to increase membership among ter, which will continue to be available Ransel, David L. 2009. A Russian Mer- mid-career / senior scholars as well as online -- even more available as a result chant’s Tale: The Life and Adventures graduate students (and perhaps the pre- of decisions taken in December at the of Ivan Alekseevich Tolchenov, Based college population as well; AATSEEL Executive Committee meeting. Where on His Diary. Bloomington, IN: Indi- has outreach opportunities here that we may go in the future with the news- ana University Press. could bring us to the attention of the new letter, I will report to you in April, after Marcovitz, Hal. 2009. Russian Ameri- Washington administration’s education the ad hoc newsletter committee makes cans. Mason Crest publishers policy as regards language literacy). its suggestions for 2009-2010 and later One more e-mail communication to the Executive Committee. Continued on page 6 from one more institution is everyone’s We will also be adding an excit- bad dream, but we are working on ways ing new feature in the April newslet- to keep you in the flow of our organi- ter, thanks to the assistance of Nancy 3 AATSEEL NEWSLETTER Vol. 52, Issue 1 February 2009 ture course on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky sor of Russian. Ben is the author of two 2008 AATSEEL at Northwestern has been the envy of books on foreign language teaching Awards for Teaching, every Slavic department that wonders and editor or co-editor of two volumes where our majors have gone (this Fall of essays, one of them the recipient of Service & Scholarship 2008, enrollment in Saul’s Great Nov- an earlier award from this organiza- els course is 560). A legend from the tion. This year he is part of the winning Outstanding Contribution to podium, Saul became a Charles Deer- team of authors of advanced web-based Scholarship: Gary Saul Morson ing McCormick Professor of Teaching listening comprehension activities in This year is the 30th anniversary