Ukrainian for Reading Knowledge

Dr. Volodymyr Dibrova, Preceptor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University

This 8-credit language course is designed primarily for graduate students of the humanities and social sciences who wish to acquire a reading knowledge of Ukrainian for research purposes. Texts from a variety of fields are used. Reading selections include annotated articles on contemporary issues in business, economics, politics, science, technology, environment, and culture.

PREREQUISITES: Some previous background in Ukrainian, Russian, or other Slavic languages with permission of the instructor.

This course meets 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, four hours daily, Monday through Friday, for seven weeks, a total of 140 contact hours of instruction. This is a FLAS eligible course. (8 credits; UKRN S-G)

Ukraine in the World: Exploring Contemporary Ukraine

Dr. Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

This course explores Ukraine from multiple and intersecting levels. It begins by asking students to think about Ukraine in the world, drawing on its most recent past to place Ukraine in the present. In particular, it focuses on Ukraine's geopolitical relationships with its neighbors and on major socioeconomic trends, such as neoliberal capitalism. We examine Ukraine as a nation state and consider key questions such as: what is the Ukrainian nation? Is Ukraine a democracy? Students consider how national identity and ideology are significant for understanding contemporary Ukraine. The course addresses the framing of regionalism in Ukraine, drawing on early arguments in Ukrainian studies dividing Ukraine into east and west, as well as on new research that resists such clear delineations. The course concludes at the local level, exploring the effects of new policies of decentralization on contemporary Ukraine. (Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-3 PM; 4 credits; UKRN S-128)

Tradition and Modernity in Ukraine, 19th and 20th Centuries

Dr. Serhiy Bilenky, Research Associate, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta

The main focus of this course is on the cities and complex relations between tradition and modernity in Ukraine in a wider imperial and transnational context. The course introduces students to the most important social, political, and cultural issues facing modern Ukraine, from the imperial to Soviet and post-Soviet times, primarily in urban settings. We consider major cities such as Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, as well as Jewish shtetls and monuments of Soviet industrial sublime, such as the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station. We explore such topics as the reactionary responses to modernity ranging from anti-Semitism to religious conservatism; the central role of the city and urbanization; making and unmaking of nationalities; public hygiene and the limits of control; revolutionary culture and artistic avant-garde; the long-lasting effects of wars and extreme violence on society; the curse of resources; and the rise of mass culture and sport, among others. Students learn why studying Ukraine is essential for our understanding of the modern world. (Mondays and Wednesdays from 12-3PM; 4 credits; UKRN S-132)

Dr. Serhiy Bilenky

Research Fellow at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto. Candidate of Sciences, Kyiv Shevchenko National University; PhD (in History), University of Toronto. Taught courses on Russian, Ukrainian, and east European histories at the University of Toronto (2009-2010; 2013-2016) and Columbia University (2009-2012). The author of three monographs: Mykhailo Maksymovych ta osvitni praktyky na Pravoberezhnii Ukraїni u pershii polovyni XIX stolittia (Kyiv, 1999); Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe: Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Political Imaginations (Stanford University Press, 2012); and Imperial Urbanism in the Borderlands: Kyiv, 1800-1905 (University of Toronto Press, 2017). The editor of the selected writings of the 19th century Ukrainian intellectuals, Fashioning Modern Ukraine: Selected Writings of Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych, and Mykhailo Drahomanov (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2014).

Dr. Emily Channell-Justice

Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. She is a sociocultural anthropologist who has been doing research in Ukraine since 2012. She has pursued research on political activism and social movements among students and feminists during the 2013-2014 Euromaidan mobilizations. Her ethnography Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism in Ukraine is forthcoming, and her edited volume, Decolonizing Queer Experience: LGBT+ Narratives from Eastern Europe and Eurasia (Lexington Books) was published in 2020. She has published academic articles in several journals, including History and Anthropology, Revolutionary Russia, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She received her PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, in September 2016, and she was a Havighurst Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies at Miami University, Ohio from 2016-2019.

Dr. Volodymyr Dibrova

Media Content Specialist - Research Reporter, HURI; Preceptor in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University. BA, Kyiv Shevchenko University, Ukraine; MA, Kyiv Linguistic University; PhD (Candidate of Sciences), Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Literary critic, translator (1991 M.Lukash Prize for translating S.Beckett’s novel Watt into Ukrainian), playwright (1996 Sherban-Lapika Prize for The Short Course), writer (2007 BBC Ukrainian Service Book of the Year Prize for Andrew’s Way). Most recent publications – a collection of short stories Tealuxe Sketchbook, Kyiv, Pulsary, 2012; a collection of stories and essays Old Stories Retold, Kyiv, Komora, 2013.