Russian and East European Studies
REEESNe 2023 Student Conference and Slavic Bazaar
10:30 | Conference Registration opens on the 6th floor of the Van Pelt Library
10:45 and 11:15 | Presentations by Kirsten Painter and John Pollack of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Henry Charles Lea Library (Room 605), focusing on: Special Collections holdings pertaining to Soviet Ukrainian and Russian literature and education, including rare Soviet illustrated children’s books from the 1920s; and the history and current practice of collecting materials from Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Sign up for one of these two identical presentation and guided viewing sessions here.
12:00-12:45 | Lunch in the Goldstein Lobby Space
12:45-1:15 | Welcome and Opening Remarks in the Pavilion
Kristen R. Ghodsee, Professor and Chair of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Asia Neupane, Program Director, Councils on Latin American & Iberian Studies and European Studies at the MacMillan Center, Yale University
Ian MacMillen, Program Manager, REEESNe, Yale University
Arista Siebrits, student Working Group member, Rutgers University
Nicole Gonik, student Working Group member, Hunter College
Studying Russia as a Ukrainian-American: My Experience with the REEESNe Working Group
Nicole Gonik, Hunter College
1:25-3:00 | Friday Session | Panel 1 of 3 in the Pavilion
Lightning Round: Short Presentations on Experience and Research
Chair: Samantha Bodamer, Hunter College
Podcasting in REEES
Daniel Blokh, Yale University
English in the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky: Completing a Fulbright ETA Grant in Mongolia
Maggie Lindrooth, Yale University
I was in both Russia and Ukraine During Wartime: Here is what I Noticed
Teresa Esquivel, College of the Holy Cross
The 21st Century Augmented Reality Battlefield
Jack Martorano, Fairfield University
2008 Russo-Georgian War: Russian Irredentism and The Future of Europe
Korben Whitt-Leitner, University of New Haven
Mobilizing Émigré Writers in Support of Refugee Students through Tamizdat Project
Diana Gor, Hunter College
Personalizing the Conflict: Stories From the Mouths of Ukrainian People
Presley Forrest, University of Massachusetts Amherst
1:25-3:00 | Friday Session | Panel 2 of 3 in Kislak 626
Political Dynamics and Developments in Post-Socialist Regions
Chair: Gillian van der Have, Binghamton University
Neo-Titoism in the Age of the Hybrid War?
Ian Mijael Zang, University of Pennsylvania
Central Asia: A Road or a Roadblock to Russia’s “Pivot Eastward?”
Brandon Rickett, Bucknell University
Mini Russia: Serbia’s Backslide from Democracy and the Implications on the Balkans
Amina Cecunjanin, Wesleyan University
Europe’s Last Dictatorship: Power and Protest in today’s Belarus
Natasha Gaither, Yale University
1:25-3:00 | Friday Session | Panel 3 of 3 in Weigle Teaching Seminar Room
Soviet Legacies in Contemporary Post-Socialist Countries
Chair: Roseline Gray, University of Pennsylvania
Finding the Words: Searching for ‘Truth’ in the Shadows of Soviet Past
Olive Coles, University of Pennsylvania
The Demise of Soviet Ballet in the Late 20th Century
Jacob Azzi, College of the Holy Cross
The Cosmopolitan “Land of Fire”: Symbolic Space, Soviet Legacy, and Post-Socialist Futurity in the Urban Architecture of Baku
Sam Heimowitz, Yale University
Doctor or Vodka: The Best Cure
Debby Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania
3:15-4:55 | A special tour in the Penn Museum by REEESNe institution alums Lauren Ristvet (Associate Professor of Anthropology) and Sarah Linn (Associate Director of Academic Engagement) of the Museum's Cold War Spy Planes exhibit and of the Russian ethnographic and ancient (Scythian Maikop) collections.
5:15 | Dinner at the Biopond (Rain location is the 7th floor of Williams Hall)
Saturday, April 15th
8:30-9:00 | Breakfast in Golkin Room in Houston Hall
9:00-10:00 | Alumni Panel in Golkin Room in Houston Hall
Career Conversations: Graduates of REEESNe institutions speak about their REEES-related educational and professional paths
Elizaveta Mankovskaya, PhD, Princeton University; Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Saint Joseph’s University
Spencer Willig, BA, University of Pennsylvania; Trial Attorney, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Aaron Schwartzbaum, BA, Haverford College; Columnist and Podcast Host, Foreign Policy Research Institute
10:30-11:45 | Saturday Session 1 | Panel 1 of 5 in the Pavilion
War in Ukraine 1
Chair: Jack Martorano, Fairfield University
Crushing Corruption of the Russian Legal System: How People Under an Autocracy Have Learned to Rebel
Presley Forrest, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Foreign Direct Investment & Russian Aggression: How the Kremlin Crashed the Economy
Malachy Taplin, Clark University
Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy
Michal Wyrebkowski, University of Pennsylvania
10:30-11:45 | Saturday Session 1 | Panel 2 of 5 in Kislak 626
Insights into Agricultural Productivity and Land Grabbing: Exploring Historical and Contemporary Perspectives in Russia and Kazakhstan
Chair: Clare Walston, Franklin and Marshall College
Modelling Institutional and Geographic Components of Russian Grain Productivity, 1856-1900
Elizaveta Brover, University of Pennsylvania
Kazakhstan's Land Rush: Dispossession from "Transition" to "Development"
Mason Smith, Columbia University
10:30-11:45 | Saturday Session 1 | Panel 3 of 5 in Kislak 627
Identity, Culture, and Interpretation in Eastern European Literature
Chair: Grayson Hawthorn, Smith College
Victory Over the Sun: A Feminist Approach in Translating Eastern European Suprematist Texts
Victoria Avanesov, University of Pennsylvania
"A vision of ancient times": Interpreting Identity in the Shtetls of Babel's Red Cavalry Rosie Berman, Rutgers University
The Dragon Within: The Colluding Role of Culture in Evgeny Shvarts’ The Dragon
Diana Gor, Hunter College
10:30-11:45 | Saturday Session 1 | Panel 4 of 5 in Kislak 628
Imperialist Aims and Totalitarian Tactics
Chair: Jason Seter, Columbia University
The Securitate: Social Workers of Totalitarian Romania
Max Annunziata, University of Pennsylvania
Holodomor and Asharshylyk (Aşarşylyq): Soviet man-made famines
Nazerke Mukhlissova, Yale University
Debunking Russian translatio imperii - the Myth of “Moscow as the Third Rome” and the Role of Premodern Narratives in Russian Political Thought
Roseline Gray, University of Pennsylvania
10:30-11:45 | Saturday Session 1 | Panel 5 of 5 in Weigle Teaching Seminar Room (4th floor)
Assessments and Analyses of Health and Education Data in Central Asia, Mongolia, and South Caucasus
Chair: Adrien Mercat, Columbia University
Assessing Almaty Citizens' Attitudes and Behaviors through the Health Belief Model
Alua Bekbossynova, Jessica McCurry, Kaliana Rae, Oyu-Erdene Ankhbayar, and Allen Wilson, Lehigh University
A Woman Must, First of All, Be Educated: A Comparative Analysis of the Reverse Gender Gap in Mongolian and Kyrgyz Higher Education
Maggie Lindrooth, Yale University
Girls’ Literacy Rate in the South Caucasus Countries Before and After Independence.
Gunel Alasgarova, The Pennsylvania State University
11:45-12:30 | Lunch in the Goldstein Lobby Space
12:30-1:45 | Saturday Session 2 | Panel 1 of 5 in the Pavilion
Constructing Histories and Identities: Nationhood, Religion, and Minority Experiences in Post-Soviet Spaces
Chair: Teresa Esquivel, College of the Holy Cross
For Faith and For The Homeland: The Canonization of the Armenian Genocide Victims in the Armenian Apostolic Church
Grayson Hawthorn, Smith College
Claims to Autochthony in Georgian Historical Discourses
Adrien Mercat, Columbia University
Looking Towards the Sun: Latvia’s Multicultural History and Future
Julia Mohr, Bryn Mawr College
12:30-1:45 | Saturday Session 2 | Panel 2 of 5 in Kislak 626
Globalizing Communism: Soft Power, Artistic Exchange, and Migration in the Interwar and Cold War Eras
Chair: Mason Smith, Columbia University
Negotiating ‘Soviet’ Mexico: How Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros Embodied and Debated Transnational Communism from the Soviet Union, 1925-1928
Mariluz Tejeda Leon, Yale University
Black October: the Migration of Black Americans to the Soviet Union During the Interwar Period
Alice Volfson, Connecticut College
12:30-1:45 | Saturday Session 2 | Panel 3 of 5 in Kislak 627
Deconstructing Boundaries: Sentimentalism, Femininity, and Magic in Russian Literature
Chair: Catherine E. Fantuzzo, University of Pennsylvania
The Function of Sentimentalism in Nikolai Karamzin’s Prose
Liam Phillips, University of Pennsylvania
Evolution of “the New Feminine” in Dostoevsky’s Major Novels
Zora Vujovic, Williams College
Chekhov’s Sorceresses: An Evolution of Magic and Gender in Chekhov’s Work
Nicole Gonik, Hunter College
12:30-1:45 | Saturday Session 2 | Panel 4 of 5 in Kislak 628
Cinematic Explorations of Existentialism and National Identity in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe
Chair: Madeline Muller, Bryn Mawr College
Tracing Latvian National Identity in Early Films of the Riga School of Poetic Documentary
Samantha Bodamer, Hunter College
Necrorealism: Where Have Life, Death, and Resistance Met and Will it Meet Again?
Arista Siebrits, Rutgers University
The Metaphysics of Abstraction in Ivan Maximov's 1990 Animation Sketchbooks
Sophia Ampgkarian, University of Pennsylvania
12:30-1:45 | Saturday Session 2 | Panel 5 of 5 in Weigle Teaching Seminar Room (4th floor)
Unraveling Cultural Narratives: Art, Technology, and Humor in Changing Societies
Chair: Gunel Alasgarova, Pennsylvania State University
Out of Odesa: Yefim Ladyzhensky’s Life in Art
Beatrice Voorhees, Connecticut College
Building Cybernetics: Andrei Ershov and the Siberian School
Danielle Wallner, Brandeis University
Laughter and Diversification: The Contemporary Role of Stand-Up Comedy in Croatia
Jason Seter, Columbia University
2:00-3:15 | Saturday Session 3 | Panel 1 of 5 in the Pavilion
Tolstoy and Being Human: Reason, Expression, Identity
Chair: Liam Phillips, University of Pennsylvania
Use of Reason and Faith in Tolstoy’s Oeuvre
Catherine E. Fantuzzo, University of Pennsylvania
Coifs, Curls, and Chignons: Hairstyles as a Play on the Erotic in Anna Karenina
Madeline Muller, Bryn Mawr College
An Imperfect Art: Communication Within and Beyond the Verbal Realm in Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Tova Tachau, University of Pennsylvania
2:00-3:15 | Saturday Session 3 | Panel 2 of 5 in Kislak 626
Challenging Boundaries: Queerness, Identity, and Subversion in Post-Soviet Popular Culture
Chair: Maggie Lindrooth, Yale University
Decolonization in Post-Soviet Drag: Verka Serduchka in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest
Ryan Hardy, University of Pennsylvania
Don’t Display the Gay: Reframing Queerness, Reclaiming Agency, and Resisting the Russian State in Children-404
Max Heimowitz, Yale University
Soviet Prison Tattoos: How has the Soviet Union affected Contemporary Russian Prison Tattoos?
Clare Walston, Franklin and Marshall College
2:00-3:15 | Saturday Session 3 | Panel 3 of 5 in Kislak 627
Communist Theory, Ideology, and Practice
Rosie Berman, Rutgers University
New Women Grow Here: Nature as Future in Alexandra Kollontai and Yente Serdatzky's Post-Revolutionary Fiction
Grace Sewell, Swarthmore College
Flaws in a Historical Materialist Perspective Explored through Post-Socialism
Jan Rossner, University of Pennsylvania
Communist Transcendence: A Dialectical Interpretation of Soviet Spiritual Cinema
Daniel Blokh, Yale University
2:00-3:15 | Saturday Session 3 | Panel 4 of 5 in Kislak 628
Hidden Voices and Cultural Rebirth: Exploring Gender, Memory, and National Identity in Russian Imperial and Soviet Contexts
Chair: Beatrice Voorhees, Connecticut College
A Runaway Bride, a Great Escape, and a Scandal Erased From History
Marlie Nist, College of the Holy Cross
Memories of Leningrad: The Erasure of Women's Experiences
Gillian van der Have, Binghamton University
Lightning-Sword and Blazing Steed under the Hammer and Sickle: The Rebirth of David of Sassoun in Soviet Armenia
Diego Benning Wang, Princeton University
2:00-3:15 | Saturday Session 3 | Panel 5 of 5 in Weigle Teaching Seminar Room (4th floor)
War in Ukraine 2
Chair: Juila Mohr, Bryn Mawr College
The Evolution of Chechen Paramilitary Groups and their Involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war
Lavinia Teodorescu, Harvard College
“My Bullets Are Words”: Language and Identity in Wartime Ukraine
Thomasina Hare, Williams College
Before and After Total War: The Evolution of Ukrainian National Identity
Viktor Lutsyshen, College of the Holy Cross
3:30-4:45 | Keynote Address in the Pavilion
Ethics and Biopolitics in Tolstoy
Justin Weir, Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature, Affiliate of the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Harvard University
4:45-5:30 | Dinner in the Goldstein Lobby Space
