NEW YORK – Three scholars will be visiting the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, for academic year 2019-2020, beginning in the fall 2019 semester. The program will be offering six courses and organizing several events, including a two-day conference focusing on Ukrainian cultural responses to the war between Ukraine and Russia in the Donbas.
Dr. Olena Martynyuk will be a postdoctoral Fellow in Ukrainian studies at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University for two years, starting in the fall. Dr. Martynyuk’s appointment is generously supported by the Petro Jacyk Fund. She holds a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers University and is specialist in art during the period of prerstroika. Dr. Martynyuk will be teaching a course at Columbia in the spring 2020 semester.
Two Fulbright scholars from Ukraine will be visiting the program in the 2019-2020 academic year.
The first, Dr. Oksana Remaniaka, has a Ph.D. in the history of art and is chief of the Laboratory of Modern Art Technologies at the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine and professor at the Culturology Department of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. She will be working on a research project titled “The Diaspora Visual Arts of the Inter-War and Post-War Periods: A Holistic View of Ukrainian Art.”
The second is Maria Shuvalova, a Ph.D. student at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy who will be researching the Ukrainian-American short story at the turn of the 21st century.
On Wednesdays, 2:10-4 p.m., Prof. Alexander Motyl will teach the course “Ukraine in New York” – a course that offers a multidisciplinary exploration of the Ukrainian-American community in New York City from its beginnings in the late 19th century to the present. The course focuses on the history, demographics, economics, politics, religion, education and culture of the community, devoting particular attention to the impact thereon of the New York setting, shifting attitudes towards American politics and culture and homeland politics and culture, and the tensions encountered in navigating between America, Soviet Ukraine and independent Ukraine.
Ambassador Valeriy Kuchynskyi will be teaching a course titled “Ukrainian Foreign Policy: Russia, Europe and the U.S.,” which will be held on Tuesdays at 2:10-4 p.m. The course deals with the performance of independent Ukraine on the international arena, its relationship with major powers – Russia, Europe and the U.S. – and the trajectory of its foreign policy. Special emphasis is made on the assessment of current conflict with Moscow and on the new trends in foreign policy doctrine. The issues of national security and current political situation are dealt with extensively. The format of the course will encourage active dialogue and analytical reflection on the part of the students.
This semester, Dr. Yuri Shevchuk (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures) will teach the course “Soviet, Post-Soviet, Colonial and Postcolonial Cinema.” The course will discuss how filmmaking has been used as an instrument of power and imperial domination in the Soviet Union as well as in the post-Soviet space since 1991. A body of select films by Soviet and post-Soviet directors that exemplify the function of filmmaking as a tool of appropriation of the colonized, their cultural and political subordination by the Soviet center will be examined in terms of postcolonial theories.
The course will focus both on Russian cinema and on often overlooked work of Ukrainian, Georgian, Belarusian, Armenian, etc. national film schools and will examine how they participated in the communist project of fostering a “new historic community of the Soviet people” as well as resisted it by generating in hidden and, since 1991, overt and increasingly assertive ways their own counter-narratives. Close attention will be paid to the new Russian film as it re-invents itself within the post-Soviet imperial momentum projected on the former Soviet colonies. This course will take place on Tuesdays at 6:10-10 p.m.
Three levels of Ukrainian language instruction will be taught this fall by Dr. Shevchuk: Elementary will be taught on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m. and Intermediate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:10-11:25 a.m. Advanced will be presented in a new course titled “Advanced Ukrainian Through Literature, Media, and Politics,” which will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays at 2:40-3:55 p.m. This content-based modular course aims to develop students’ capacity to use the Ukrainian language as a research and communication tool in a variety of specialized functional and stylistic areas that include literary fiction, scholarly prose and print and broadcast journalism.
Several events have already been scheduled for the fall semester. On October 7, at 4 p.m., the program will organize the roundtable “Envisioning Ukrainian Literature 2019 Part II” featuring Irene Zabytko, Alexander Motyl, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Olena Jennings and Mark Andrycyzk. Oksana Kis (Department of Social Anthropology Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) will deliver a talk titled “Remaining a Ukrainian Woman: Normative Femininity as ‘Armor’ in the Gulag” on October 7 at noon. Both events will take place in the Marshall D. Shulman Seminar Room (Room 1219, International Affairs Building).
On November 1-2, the Ukrainian Studies Program, The Ukrainian Museum and the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University will be co-sponsoring the conference “Five Years of War in the Donbas: Cultural Responses and Reverberations.” The conference will gather an international array of scholars for two days at Columbia University to discuss the diverse ways that Ukrainian culture has been stirred by the recent war between Ukraine and Russia in the Donbas.
Day one of the conference will conclude with the screening of Valentyn Vasyanovych’s film “Atlantis” with the participation of the filmmaker. Day two of the conference will finish with the U.S. premier at The Ukrainian Museum of the exhibit “A Conversation” by legendary Ukrainian artist Vlodko Kaufman, who will also be present at the opening. The exact times for the conference panels, the film screening and the opening of the exhibit will be made available at https://harriman.columbia.edu/programs/ukrainian-studies-program. All of these events and the conference are open to the public.
Courses at Columbia are open to students from other universities in the New York metropolitan area seeking credit. Interested students are advisded to contact the university at which they are enrolled to determine whether it participates in this manner with Columbia University. Some courses are also open to outside individuals interested in non-credit continuing studies. Additionally, through the Lifelong Learners program, individuals over age 65 who are interested in auditing courses may enroll at a discount rate as Lifelong Learners. Visit the Columbia University School of Continuing Education (http://www.ce.columbia.edu/auditing/?PID=28) for more details.
September 3 is the first day of classes, and September 13 is the final day to register for a class. For more information about courses or the Ukrainian Studies Program at Columbia University, readers may contact Dr. Mark Andryczyk at [email protected] or 212-854-4697.