Columbia University introduces new Ukrainian studies courses (08/27/06)

Columbia University introduces new Ukrainian studies courses

by Diana Howansky

NEW YORK -- The Ukrainian Studies Program at Columbia University is adding new classes to its course schedule this 2006-2007 academic year, beginning on September 5. Through the generosity of donors within the Ukrainian American community, the Columbia program continues to grow and provide students with fresh perspectives and information on Ukraine.

"What I find most exciting about the new courses we are offering this year is that they come from the path-breaking dissertations of young scholars - in history, anthropology and ethnomusicology," said Prof. Mark von Hagen, director of the Ukrainian Studies Program, who also recently became chair of Columbia's history department.

During the upcoming fall 2006 semester, a history class focusing on the tumultuous World War II and post-war period in Ukraine and the surrounding areas, titled "War and Society in Eastern Europe: 1939 to the Present," will be taught by Prof. Tarik Amar (Ph.D., Princeton University) for graduate and advanced undergraduate students on Thursdays at 9-10:50 a.m.

"The main objective of this course is to examine the second world war as a catastrophic as well as defining moment in the history and politics of modern Eastern Europe. The course focuses not only on the second world war itself but on its legacies - the ongoing powerful emotional and political immediacy of the wartime. Thematically, the material ranges from the everyday life of the non-military populations to the history and legacy of responses within the whirlwind of occupation, deportation, ethnic cleansing and genocide," Prof. Amar writes in his course syllabus.

Prof. Amar, who has lived and conducted research in Ukraine and Poland, completed his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton on the topic of the modern history of the city of Lviv, in particular its path through World War II, foreign occupations and Sovietization from a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic ex-Habsburg borderland city to a post-Soviet Ukrainian city.

Also offered during the fall 2006 semester for graduate and advanced undergraduates will be a new anthropology course focusing on the relationship of space and time in Ukraine and neighboring countries, titled "Through the Prism of Place: Perspectives on Experience of the (Once) Socialist World," taught by Diana Blank (Ph.D., University of California) on Mondays and Wednesdays at 9:10-10:25 a.m.

This class begins with the Bolshevik project, which understood that the environment in which individuals live is where forces interact and potentially cause social revolution. Prof. Blank says in her course description: "The course traces the historical evolutions of this socialist project, and explores the array of actually existing common experiences that were shaped by and gave shape to these interventions, as well as the ways socialist subjects often participated as agents in these processes of politics and planning. While the course is informed by perspectives from history, literary studies, and architecture and urban planning, it offers a distinctly anthropological perspective - one that emphasizes the construction of meaning through the experience, practice and narration of place."

Prof. Blank, who was a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia's Harriman Institute during the 2005-2006 academic year, has lectured and written widely about the concept of place in Ukrainian border towns.

Profs. Amar and Blank will join a roster of established Ukrainian courses at Columbia being offered again this fall, including three levels of Ukrainian language instruction: beginner (taught by Rory Finnin, Ph.D. candidate at Columbia's Slavic Department, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:40-6:55 p.m.); intermediate (taught by Dr. Yuri Shevchuk, lecturer of Ukrainian language and culture at Columbia, on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:10-7:25 p.m.); and advanced (taught by Dr. Shevchuk on Mondays and Wednesdays at 4:10-5:25 p.m.).

Furthermore, Ambassador Valeriy Kuchinsky, permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, will again teach the course "Ukraine and the United Nations Through the Eyes of a Ukrainian Ambassador: Diplomacy and Politics" on Tuesdays at 7-9 p.m, starting on September 5.

The Columbia Ukrainian Studies Program has also lined up new courses for the following spring 2007 semester, such as an ethnomusicology class on popular music in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, taught by Dr. Adriana Helbig (Ph.D., Columbia University), and a class on Ukrainian film, taught by Dr. Shevchuk, who also serves as director of the Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University. Detailed information about next semester's courses will be available at a later date.

Many of the Columbia Ukrainian Studies Program courses are open to students from other universities in the New York metropolitan area, as well as to outside individuals interested in non-credit continuing studies. Undergraduate and graduate students from New York University, for example, can register directly with their school for Ukrainian language classes at Columbia, while Ph.D. candidates from universities that are part of the Columbia University Consortium (e.g., New York University, City University of New York, New School) can register for non-language courses by obtaining appropriate approval from both their home school and Columbia.

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For further details about registering for courses, or signing up for the Ukrainian Studies Program email list to receive notifications of events, please contact Diana Howansky by phone at 212-854-4697 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Additional information can also be obtained on the Columbia Ukrainian Studies Program website at http://www.harrimaninstitute.org/programs/ukrainian_studies_program.html.

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