Lecturing on Russian Environmental Issues
“Great Russian Nutcracker” featuring local ballet dancers cast as party children, mice, angels, butterflies, and snowflakes.
Kemal Pervanic is a survivor of the Serb concentration camp of Omarska that was established in northwestern Bosnia in May 1992 as part of a strategy of "ethnic cleansing." Mr. Pervanic wrote of his experiences during the startup phase of the war in Bosnia in his memoir "The Killing Days: My Journey through the Bosnian War" (Blake: London, 1999). He is at work on a second book dealing with his activities in support of ethnic Muslim refugees seeking to reestablish an existence in the area in northwestern Bosnia from which he and they were expelled in 1992. He is also collaborating with filmmaker David Evans on a documentary film "Pretty Village." During Fall Semester 2012 he is in residence at Columbia University as Human Rights Activist 2012.
Lecture at the Crime and Punishment in Russia's Realms class. Free and open to the public.
Co-Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass. $7/ticket; free with valid college ID
Hanks' presentation will focus on the role that hyper-nationalism has played in archaeology since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The speaker has been leading collaborative field research since 2005 with several Russian universities at Bronze Age (2100-1700 BCE) sites in the Southern Ural Mountains region. These sites, and the archaeological evidence associated with them, have become a popular resource for what has emerged as a dynamic socio-political discourse on the prehistoric and mythic past (proto-Slavs and Indo-Aryans). Such views contrast sharply with the archaeological evidence from recent field research. The important question of how these issues may continue to influence politicized perspectives of the past, and the negative effect this may have on programs of education and cultural heritage, will be examined.
Houle's presentation will examine ethnographic and archaeological data gathered this past summer in the Altai region of western Mongolia and contrasting this with data from the Khanuy Valley region of north-central Mongolia, the region he worked in previously.
Join us for sweet & savory Russian treats and a cup of tea! All levels of Russian speakers are welcome, as are those of you who do not speak Russian.
Lecture in Crime and Punishment Class, free and open to the public
This seminar aims to present the major structural features of the Rusyn language – phonological and morphological – that make it what it is: it is East Slavic, related to but not the same as Ukrainian, and also something special, almost a bridge between East and West Slavic. That ‘something special’ is in great part attributable to long contact with other languages and their speakers, but also to certain linguistic innovations that are not identifiable simply as the result of borrowing from other languages.
In this talk we explore who the Rusyns are, the language(s) they speak, and the complex interplay of issues that contribute to the construction of their ethnic and linguistic identities. Although we do not address the detailed workings of their language, we examine the position of Rusyn within the larger societies in which Rusyns live, and we also attempt to put it into perspective vis-à-vis its closest relative (Ukrainian) and other Slavic languages.
