CREEES Professional Resources Forum

Deadline: February 15, 2020

The UIC Department of Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian Studies (https://prls.uic.edu/) invites interested students to apply for the MA and PhD programs in Polish and Russian Literatures and Cultures at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  For detailed information about our graduate program and application deadlines and instructions, please click this link or see the information below: https://prls.uic.edu/academics/ma-and-phd/grad-invitation/.  We would be very grateful if you could send the link or forward this email to all interested students.

We welcome you to join our thriving department in one of the US’s most livable and affordable cultural centers. In recent years, the department has placed all of its graduating PhD students in full-time academic positions at both research universities and liberal arts colleges in North America. UIC’s record for graduate student success in the fields of Polish, Russian, and Polish-Jewish studies is rooted in the department’s attentive advising and supportive scholarly community.

The PRLS Department at UIC offers graduate students a vibrant intellectual environment where they can pursue innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship. Department faculty specialize in:
•       20th and 21st Century Polish and Russian Literatures
•       Verbal and Visual Avant-gardes
•       Literary Theory
•       Polish Jewish Culture, and Comparative Polish and Yiddish Modernisms
•       Film & Media
•       Diaspora, Transnationalism and Multilinguality
•       Sound Studies

All courses at UIC approach literature and the arts as spaces of encounter, and thus highlight the productive interaction of diverse cultural and linguistic traditions that characterize Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Jewish history. Recent graduate courses have included:
•       Addiction and Modernity
•       Decline of Art: Polish Avant-garde and the Crisis of European Culture
•       Disobedient Practices: Literature as Resistance to Stalinism
•       Gombrowicz: Exile and Exposition
•       Imperial Formations: Topics in New Imperial History
•       Nabokov and the Nabokovian
•       Perversion and Bureaucracy: Modern Intellectual History of Central Europe
•       Polish Jewish Territories in the Literary Imagination
•       Russia and the West
•       Schulz: Messianism, Masochism, and Melancholy
•       The Russian Avant-Garde
•       Translation, Transmission, and Translinguality
•       The Truth of the Matter: Artists and the Actual in Russian Literature and Cinema
•       Theory and Practice of Parody
•       Writing in the Third Language: Between Theology and Materialism in Central & East European Prose

The department is deeply engaged with intellectual life at UIC, and graduate students frequently pursue courses in UIC’s renowned departments of English and Art History. Our students especially benefit from close collaboration with our colleagues in the Department of History, where four professors specialize in the history and thought of Russia and Poland. Furthermore, every year a visiting scholar from Poland (funded by the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program) and a visiting scholar from Russia (funded by the Prokhorov Fund) offer seminars and contribute to the intellectual life of the department.

Students earning a graduate degree in Russian or Polish literatures may complement their courses by enrolling in an Interdepartmental Graduate Concentration in Gender and Women’s Studies, Central and Eastern European Studies, or Violence Studies. In addition to developing expertise in research, students learn and practice cutting edge teaching techniques at
the Language and Culture Learning Center.

The majority of our graduate students are awarded teaching assistantships that come with a stipend and full tuition waiver for the duration of their program. They further benefit from the support of UIC’s strong Graduate Employees Union.

Financial resources made available by the creation of the Stefan & Lucy Hejna Fund in Polish Language and Literature at UIC create opportunities for vibrant and ongoing exchange with prominent scholars in the fields of Polish Studies, Polish Jewish Studies and Central and East European Studies, through the organization at UIC of annual international conferences, and of events highlighting developments in contemporary Polish culture and scholarship. The UIC Fund for Polish Jewish Studies provides support for conference participation as well as merit-based awards.

For students interested in Russian studies, our annual Workshop in Russian Modernism brings together leading scholars in the field to discuss salient topics related to modernity and postmodernity. In addition to supporting a visiting scholar, our partnership with the Prokhorov Fund allows us to bring a creative personality from Russia each year and send two graduate students to take part in a summer seminar at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg. In 2018, Maxim Didenko, an award-winning Russian theater director, spent a week at UIC, where he conducted a two-day master class for our students, visited classes, and answered questions after the screening of his critically acclaimed play, Earth. The department also hosts numerous lectures and performances by writers, poets, filmmakers and musicians; our recent guests included Kirill Medvedev, Anna Moiseenko, Roman Osminkin, Maria Stepanova, Tatyana Tolstaya, and Yuri Andrukhovych.

To be considered for university fellowships, the early deadline is December 15, 2019. To be considered for teaching assistantships or tuition wavers, complete applications must be received by February 15, 2020. Detailed application instructions can be found on the admissions website.   Further information about our graduate programs can be found on our website.  Please direct your inquiries about the graduate program and application process to Director of Graduate Studies Julia Vaingurt at vaingurt@uic.edu.

Deadline: December 31, 2019

The Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University welcomes applicants to our Integrated Ph.D. program for Autumn 2020. The Department offers graduate students a stimulating intellectual environment and generous financial support. Columbus is a vibrant, contemporary, and livable city, and the historic Ohio State campus features outstanding library and research collections, up-to-date new and renovated classroom, meeting and athletic facilities, beautiful old trees and sustainable landscaping, and convenient transportation connections within the city and the region.

Our graduate course offerings appeal to a broad range of intellectual interests, with three major areas of concentration: Literature and Culture, Slavic Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Department faculty have expertise in classical, modernist, Soviet, émigré, and postmodern Russian, Central European, and South Eastern European literatures, film, and interdisciplinary cultural studies; transpositions of literature into other media; gender and feminist studies; digital humanities; print media; national identity; bilingualism; language and memory; pedagogy; the structure and history of the Slavic languages; Balkan linguistics; medieval Slavic texts; and morphology. The first two years of study include literature, linguistics, film, and SLA and help create a cohesive cohort of well-rounded scholars who then head into their research specializations. We encourage graduate students to pursue interdisciplinary studies within and outside the department, including programs such as Comparative Studies, History, Linguistics, Music, Teaching & Learning, and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Topics of current and recent dissertation projects include: history in Russian opera; prison spaces in Russian literature; the criminal song; the detective novel; autobiographical memory, identity, and immigration; language development in heritage speakers; and acquisition of pragmatic skills on study abroad. Ohio State also hosts the annual Midwest Slavic Conference, which enables graduate students to present their research to a national audience right on campus.

Deadline: January 15, 2020

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia welcomes applications for three graduate programs, the MA in Contemporary Russian Studies, the MA in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures.

The MA in Contemporary Russian Studies offers courses in Russian literature, language, culture, history, politics, art history, religious studies, and sociology, as well as further study in advanced Russian language.

The MA and PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures train graduate students primarily in Russian literature, culture, and advance language skills toward professional-level proficiency. At the PhD level students take secondary offerings in Polish language and Polish and Central European literature and film. Students may also take courses in related areas in other language departments, English, History, and Religious Studies, among many others.

Among the distinctive aspects of UVA’s graduate programs in Slavic is rigorous training to a high level of proficiency in Russian language. Students have Oral Proficiency Interviews at each level of study. Students may attend regular Russian teas, take a role in the Russian play, participate in meals and events at the 24/7 Russian-language Russian House, and a host of other events. The University has ample funds for graduate students to organize events related to Slavic cultures and to support foreign-language study and dissertation research abroad.

Other strengths of the UVA Slavic program include the opportunity to work with distinguished faculty. Areas of faculty expertise include museum studies, prison-camp literature and gulag studies, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, intellectual history, Russian philosophy and religion, digital humanities, and literary cartography. Students enjoy an effective faculty-student mentorship program and an excellent library collection with highly responsive acquisition services.

UVA’s Slavic graduate students form an active community. They run a speaker series, host professionalization workshops, organize an annual conference, publish a newsletter, and enjoy convivial social gatherings. 

UVA offers generous five-year funding packages for PhD students. The Department occasionally has partial funding and work opportunities for MA students. Depending on their language proficiency, UVA PhD students typically gain experience teaching language at various levels, as well as assisting in teaching undergraduate literature and folklore courses. Other opportunities for support are available through related departments and programs.

The deadline for on-line applications is January 15, 2020.

For information about Slavic programs and the application process, please visit the Slavic Department website at: http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/slavic/, or contact Director of Graduate Studies Edith W. Clowes at: clowes@virginia.edu or eec3c@virginia.edu.