CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) will hold its 48th annual session at Harvard University’s main campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass., for upper-level undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students, particularly those of Ukrainian heritage, as well as university students from Ukraine and professional, government and military specialists who need to hone their skills in the field of Ukrainian studies.
This year’s program will run for seven weeks beginning on Saturday, June 23, and ending on Saturday, August 11, and will offer three courses.
The program offered by HUSI was the first of its kind in the world and is recognized internationally for its many contributions to the field of Ukrainian studies. It is run jointly by the Harvard Summer School and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI). Participants will have an unparalleled opportunity to expand their knowledge of contemporary Ukraine; to learn from some of today’s leading scholars in Ukrainian studies; and to have the chance to meet and interact with major contemporary Ukrainian cultural, political and social activists.
The summer program has been in continual existence since 1971 and is intended for those concentrating in Ukrainian studies or those who wish to broaden their overall educational experience. Participants will live in Harvard University housing and will have full access to all of the university’s instructional and research facilities, including the largest Ucrainica collection outside of Eastern Europe; its many libraries, museums, athletic complexes and language resource centers.
At the end of the program they will receive credit for their courses from Harvard University, and, depending on their performance, one or more of them will be awarded the Theodosius and Irene Senkowsky Prize for Achievement in Ukrainian Studies.
This summer’s courses include “Ukrainian for Reading Knowledge,” which will be taught by Volodymyr Dibrova, preceptor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. This eight-unit language course is designed primarily for graduate students in the humanities and social sciences who wish to acquire a reading knowledge of Ukrainian for research purposes. Texts from a wide variety of fields will be used. Reading selections will include articles on contemporary issues in business, economics, politics, science, technology, environment and culture. Some previous background in Ukrainian, Russian or other Slavic language accepted by the instructor is a prerequisite for enrolling in the course. The course will meet from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., five days a week – a total of 140 contact hours of instruction.
Students at a lecture by Oleh Kotsyuba in the Prytsak Memorial Library/Conference Room presented as part of the evening lecture series of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute.
The second course is “Revolutionary Ukraine: Avant-garde Literature and Film from 1917 to the Euromaidan of 2014” (four credits), which will be taught by Harvard’s Dmytro Cyzevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and will focus on Ukrainian avant-garde literature and film, in the context of modernism, socialist realism, the impact of Stalinism, the Famine (Holodomor), World War II and the Holocaust, late Sovietism and dissent, Crimea and the Tatars, the collapse of the USSR and independence, varieties of post-modernism, and the current, ongoing conflict with Russia. There will also be forays into the visual arts.
Finally, Serhiy Bilenky of the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto will offer a four-credit course, “Laboratory of Modernity: Politics, Culture, and Society in Ukraine,” which will focus on the history of modern Ukraine through the study of its society, culture and politics since the late 18th century to the present. Ukraine will be analyzed as a territorial concept consisting of the historical experiences of its major communities including Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and Russians. Modern Ukraine has showcased several crucial issues of modernity: making and unmaking of nationalism; the mobilizing potential of nationalism; the reactionary response to modernity (ranging from anti-Semitism to religious conservatism); the long-lasting affects of wars and extreme violence on society; the “curse of resources”; the central role of city and urbanization; the rise of mass culture and sport, among others. Students will learn why studying Ukraine is crucial for understanding the modern world. A variety of sources, including literary and audio-visual, will be used. The course is open to undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students.
HUSI is the only Ukrainian studies program of its kind in North America offering seven weeks of intensive, accredited university instruction at one of the premier universities in the world. It has graduated more than 1,600 students, many of whom have gone on to play significant roles in Ukrainian scholarship, as well as in the ongoing development and enrichment of Ukrainian culture and life both in the diaspora and in Ukraine itself.
Launched during the Soviet Union’s determined drive to eliminate all things Ukrainian including art, culture, folk-memory, government, history, language, religion and society itself, and to supplant them with the idea of a single Soviet identity (homo Sovieticus), with a single history, memory and purpose, and bound together with a single Russian culture and language. HUSI was originally tasked with keeping Ukrainian culture, history, language and literature alive among the descendants of the Ukrainian settlers in North America and the rest of the diaspora by teaching these as academic disciplines in the Western liberal arts tradition while maintaining the highest educational standards of the best universities of the world.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine regained its independence, HUSI attracted many students from Ukraine who were anxious to establish contacts with their western counterparts; to experience the Western university system; and to take courses and have access to archival materials that simply were not available in Ukraine.
In the past few years there has been a noticeable trend toward increased enrollment of upper-level graduate and post graduate students, business and government professionals and, particularly, students from Ukraine attending HUSI, and so the course offerings have been retooled to reflect this change. Last year’s student body, for example, had a number of graduate and post-graduate students who were working on their theses.
Patrick Osbourne, a graduate of the European University of St. Petersburg, Russia, with a master’s degree, reflected on his summer at HUSI: “My fellow students and professors challenged me to think about certain aspects of Ukrainian history, literature and film more critically…there were also great networking and collaborative opportunities available and the extracurricular programs offered enriched the entire experience.”
When time allows, students at HUSI are also free to enjoy the vibrant life that Cambridge and Boston provide in the summertime. The area offers literally thousands of cultural events, music, history, the arts, beaches, the mountains and a vibrant Ukrainian American community.
The deadline for applying for the Harvard Summer School (including HUSI) including housing and full tuition payment is Monday, May 21. Late registration will begin on Tuesday, May 22, and continue through Wednesday, June 27.
Further information about the program and the application process is available on the HUSI website, www.huri.harvard.edu/husi.html. Additional questions may be directed to Serhiy Bilenky, HUSI program director, by e-mail at [email protected], or to Tamara Nary, HUSI program administrator, by e-mail at nary@fas.
harvard.edu.