The University of Michigan Department of Slavic
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Slavic Scene Volume 19, Number 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN TheNovember 2011 DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES & LITERATURES Letter From The Chair 2 Feature 3 In the Classroom 4–5 Graduate Student Focus 6–7 Highlights 8–9 Remembering 10 In Print 11 Jaromír Funke, The surface of the Moldau River, from Photography Sees the Surface, www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic an MSP publication Letter From the Chair TheWe’ve had anotherSlavic eventful year! We spent many fascinating hoursScene at talks and in symposia with guest scholars, Dear Friends including, most recently, Damir Arsenijević, one of the leading voices in reconciliation efforts through literature and art in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and Mikhail Iampolski, whose work blends philosophy, art history and the semiotics of culture. What is most impressive is the fact that many of these lectures were arranged and hosted not by our faculty, but by the Avant-Garde Interest Group, a graduate student assemblage of scholars led by our own Aleksandar (Sasha) Bošković and Vladislav (Vlad) Beronja. Another of our graduate students, Sarah Sutter, helped lead the Interdisciplinary Music Form, which also sponsored residencies and lectures. Our professors are in the process of writing some very important books. Professor Tatjana Aleksić’s book analyzing how the sacrificed body—in Balkan myth, literature, and cinema—has served as a metaphor for the coerced elimination of difference in the name of building a community, and Professor Sofya Khagi’s book investigating articulations of verbal skepticism (the notion that language is unable to furnish a full expression of the world) in Russian poetry from the Romantics to Mandelstam, Brodsky, and Kibirov are both virtually complete. Also nearing completion are Professor Jindřich Toman’s book on Czech-Jewish cultural interactions in the 19th century and Professor Omry Ronen’s monograph on Russian literature of the 1970s. Professor Olga Maiorova’s next book will probe Russia’s national self-perception in relation to its cultural appropriation of Central Asia and how that appropriation altered the strategies Russians used to encode their imperial impulse. Professor Mikhail Krutikov’s book project concerns works written in emigration (in the United States, Canada, Germany and Israel) by Russian Jews and their complex relationship to current issues in three cultures: Jewish, Russian and the culture of their respective adopted countries. Professor Michael Makin is completing a book on the stylization of national form in the culture and social life of Russia from the late 19th century to the present, dealing with responses that range from parody to the sincere emulation of past genres and norms in literature, the visual arts, architecture, and popular culture. Professor Benjamin Paloff is currently examining how new notions of space and time changed the representation of subjectivity and freedom in the interwar period in Russian, Polish and Czech Modernisms. Professor Andrew Herscher’s current project, a fitting sequel to his book on the destruction of architectural heritage in the former Yugoslavia during the ethnic strife of the 1990s, deals with the subsequent (and opposite) process presently underway in the region: efforts by ordinary citizens to reconstruct, create, or preserve monuments that are the patrimony of the various ethnic and religious communities. Our graduate students also continued their research on an impressive array of interdisciplinary topics. Those at the most advanced stage of their dissertation research include Vlad, who is researching the work of avant-garde artists, filmmakers and writers who use the material of both the former Yugoslavia’s mass consumer culture and of Communist propaganda to fashion works which comment critically on contemporary society and politics; Sasha, who is studying the genre of photopoetry (poetry interlaced with photographic collages) and the role it played in avant-garde movements in Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia in the period between the World Wars; and Yanina (Yana) Arnold, who is tracing the role that “literary lawyers” played in the representation of trials and juries in Russian literature of the late 19th century, as the country experienced Western-style legal advocacy and trial-by-jury in the wake of Alexander II’s reforms. Not only these three students, but many others as well, have been active in presenting their research at academic conferences. We are very proud of the work they have been doing and will feature more of it in future issues of Slavic Scene. We also launched a joint effort with the University of Illinois, which will enable both of our departments to maintain and enhance our offerings. New technology, which brings students “virtually” into a classroom from afar, is allowing courses taught in one of our universities to serve students in another simultaneously. Thus, for example, next year we will teach First Year Czech here (for our students and those at Illinois), while Second Year Czech will be taught at Illinois for students from both places. In the future, we may extend such “courseshare” projects to Ukrainian language instruction as well. Your generous contributions to the Benjamin Stolz Endowment and the John Mersereau, Jr. Fund for supporting graduate student research have been instrumental in promoting research and language study by our graduate students in the countries of our region. This work would not have been possible for many of them without your help. We thank you as well for the help you have given us, through our other funds, in sustaining our teaching of Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, as well as Russian, language and culture. You have been a key part of our efforts to create a vigorous and dedicated community of scholars and learners. We wish you a healthy and joyful holiday season, Herbert (Herb) Eagle [email protected] 2 TheFeature Slavic Scene Year of Miłosz By Benjamin Paloff 2011 marks one hundred years since the birth The University of Michigan marked the Miłosz of Czesław Miłosz, arguably the most influential centenary with the annual Copernicus Lecture Polish author of the twentieth century. So grand in September, eighteen years after Miłosz an opportunity for dialogue has not been lost on delivered his own. The event, co-sponsored by the admirers of the Nobel Prize-winning poet. In fact, Copernicus Endowment, the Department of Slavic the Polish government has officially designated this Languages and Literatures, and the Zell Visiting the Year of Miłosz, with Miłosz-themed academic Writers Series, featured a screening of Maria Zmarz- conferences and literary festivals throughout the Koczanowicz’s film The Magic Mountain, which year in North America, Europe, and around the documents the poet’s life and career in and around globe. From Montreal to Paris, San Francisco to the Bay Area, followed by a panel discussion with London, New York to Warsaw, Miłosz has triggered poets and translators who helped shape Miłosz’s a marathon of activity for scholars, writers, and years in the United States. Participants included publishers, and the University of Michigan, where Professor Carpenter, fellow translator Lillian Vallée, Miłosz received an honorary doctorate in 1977 and and Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky, both of whom served as Visiting Walgreen Professor of Human have served as national Poet Laureate. Professor Understanding in 1983, has been well represented Paloff moderated the discussion, which can be at these gatherings. Bogdana Carpenter, Professor viewed online in its entirety: http://www.youtube. Emerita of Slavic Languages and Literatures and com/watch?v=OleXKFJe-N8 a longtime friend of Miłosz, presented her critical In addition to these festivities, 2011 has seen a flurry reflections and personal reminiscences at events of special publications and exhibitions dedicated held at Columbia, Yale, and elsewhere. Benjamin Image of Czesław to Miłosz’s life and work, including the release of Paloff, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Miłosz from his Utwory personal correspondence, drafts, and photographs Literatures and of Comparative Literature, delivered Poetyckie (1976), the first now available to the public for the first time. All of substantial collection of new papers on Miłosz at events in Chicago and which will ensure that, long after his death in 2004, Miłosz’s poems published Warsaw. Miłosz will remain one of the major figures bridging in Polish. the literatures of Europe and North America. Symposium participants included Professor Benjamin Paloff, Professor Bogdana Carpenter, Robert Pinsky and Robert Hass, both of whom have served as national Poet Laureate, and Lillian Vallée. The discussion is available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OleXKFJe-N8 3 TheIn the Classroom Slavic Scene Power in Shared Purpose—Czech Language is U-M’s First Collaborative Language Program From left to right: Czech language students, lecturer Ewa Malachowska-Pasek, and Professor Jindřich Toman in North Quad’s video-conferencing classroom located in the LRC This fall marks the first collaborative language Department’s innovative approaches to teaching. course between University of Michigan and University of Illinois. Both universities are part of the Natasha McCauley, an SLL graduate student and Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). CIC one of the eight Czech language students, feels is a consortium of the Big Ten member universities that the format takes a little getting used to. She plus the University of Chicago. Managed through gives examples of the curious fact that they have CIC CourseShare, we are collaboratively offering the only seen their UI classmates via a small screen and 100-level Czech Language course. This semester, that the teacher (also at UI) has to accommodate classes are conducted via live video-conferencing students in front of and behind them (because from UI to U-M. Next year, Ewa Malachowska- of the camera location). For this semester, U-M Pasek will teach the course at U-M, and it will be students must submit their tests and homework transmitted via video-conferencing to UI.