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Prof. Devel.: Language Teaching and Learning Research Grants (U. of Pittsburgh)

Deadline for Applications: February 17, 2017

The University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and East European Studies will award up to two Language Teaching and Learning Research (LTLR) Grants for scholars to conduct research projects on-site at the Slavic, East European, and Near Eastern Summer Language Institute (SLI) in June – July 2017. Funded projects must focus on the teaching and learning of one or more of the following priority languages: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Polish, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian. Other languages that are taught at the SLI may be included in a project proposal in addition to these priority languages; see www.sli.pitt.edu for the complete list of language courses offered. Applicants may propose to be in residence in Pittsburgh for either all or a portion of the two-month duration of the SLI, according to the needs of their projects.

Guidelines: Applicants should propose projects that will take advantage of the unique environment and resources available at an intensive campus-based summer language institute, while not placing excessive demands on the time of SLI instructors or students. Projects involving the development of online language instructional materials are of particular interest, but other types of projects that make significant contributions to language teaching and learning will also be considered. Successful applicants will be responsible for obtaining IRB approval or exemption for research projects involving human subjects and for obtaining the informed consent of research subjects, if applicable, before starting to work on their projects.

LTLR grant recipients will be expected to submit a report of their research results to REES by October 2017; to acknowledge REES and the SLI as sponsors in any publications based on their funded projects; and to make their research products (including raw data, if possible) available for dissemination to other language instructors and scholars on a University of Pittsburgh website. Continue reading “Prof. Devel.: Language Teaching and Learning Research Grants (U. of Pittsburgh)”

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Academic Program: Art and Museums in Russia (St. Petersburg, Russia)

Deadline for Applications: April 1, 2017

Art and Museums in Russia

Russia’s rich cultural heritage is complimented by a unique emphasis that Russians place on history and education. This has helped Russia produce one of the world’s most extensive museum systems, one well-known for not only for impressive collections but also thematic versatility, multiplicity of display modes, and sheer number of institutions. With private and public support, many of Russia’s museums are being modernized and new museums are being established. Russians have also supported this as some of the world’s most avid museum enthusiasts.

Art and Museums in Russia seeks to understand the Russian museum phenomenon and covers wide subject matter. Topics include: the history of collecting, the “museumification” of historic and cultural sites, museum operations (including storage facilities, restoration labs, exhibition curation, education, and development), integration of technology and interactivity, and museum educational work.

Art and Museums in Russia is for students looking to understand not only Russia’s cultural and historical heritage, but also how cultural and historical heritage can be best preserved and transmitted. Over an intensive three weeks in beautiful St. Petersburg, Russia, we will take a behind-the-scenes look at the Hermitage Museum, and explore a plethora of others including educational museums at schools of higher learning, scientific museums, museums of ethnography, memorial apartment museums, literary museums, political history museums, and more.

– Dates and Costs –

Summer:
Cost: $3,995
June 18 – July 9, 2017

Application deadline: April 1, 2017

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: Siberian Summer Adventure (SRAS-Siberia)

Deadline for Applications: March 15, 2017

Siberian Summer Adventure
A Cultural and Environmental Trip!

Every summer, the Great Baikal Trail (GBT) leads international groups into the Baikal wilderness to build trails and other infrastructure to support ecotourism. Participants spend six hours a day working, have all meals provided, and spend the rest of their time socializing with Russians and other members of the crew. You’ll also enjoy a cultural program and take advantage of the gorgeous outdoor wilderness.

The School of Russian and Asian Studies (SRAS) has partnered with GBT to provide any interested volunteer with a well-rounded educational experience and unforgettable summer adventure in Siberia.

Students will prepare with intensive courses in Russian language and covering the specific environmental challenges facing Siberia over four weeks. Then, put your language skills to use and gain first hand knowledge of the local environment when you join GBT on a trail building expedition for two weeks!

– Dates and Costs –

Summer
Cost: $5,295
June 26 – August 7, 2017

Application deadline: March 15, 2017

Semester Options:
See Siberian Studies

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: Kyrgyz Summer Adventure (SRAS)

Deadline for Applications: March 15, 2017

Kyrgyz Summer Adventure

There are many reasons to experience Kyrgyzstan and learn more about its people, history, and culture. From its position as America’s strongest ally in the economically and militarily important Central Asia region to the opportunity it offers for outdoor adventure and inexpensive travel, we believe Kyrgyzstan is an oft-overlooked destination for study abroad.

Kyrgyz Summer Adventure offers intensive Russian language training and a one week trek through the gorgeous mountains of Kyrgyzstan on horseback, practicing the language. Students can choose three weeks of language training or, for a better value, a full nine weeks. Students will also learn more about local history, culture, and food through a variety of guest speakers and workshops.

Kyrgyz Summer Adventure is perfect for students of anthropology, language, area studies, history, or even international relations. It’s also perfect for anyone with an outdoorsy spirit who would like to gain Russian language skills this summer while doing something that will generate incredible stories and memories from your time riding, hiking, and engaging with locals in the mountains of Central Asia. See the sample itinerary below and prepare to get excited.

– Dates and Costs –

Summer

Four Weeks: Cost: $3,695
June 19 – July 16, 2017  (Apply by: April 15, 2017)

Ten Weeks: Cost: $7,390
May 29 – Aug 4, 2017  (Apply by: March 15, 2017)

Semester Options: See Central Asian Studies

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: Russian as a Second Language (SRAS)

Deadline for Applications: March 15/31, 2017

Russian as a Second Language
Study Russian in Russia, Ukraine, or Kyrgyzstan

Russian as a Second Language (RSL) program packages are designed for flexibility to suit almost any need or interest. Study for a week or a year. Choose the bustling streets of Moscow or the rugged hills of Kyrgyzstan. Take advanced courses or start with the basics. Home Stays and TORFL Testing are optionally available. Full summer programs can be combined with seminars and adventures ranging from business courses to horse trekking. With SRAS, it’s all up to you.

Options:

Full Summer (10 weeks): Cost: $6,695
May 29 – Aug 4, 2017  (Apply by: March 15, 2017)
Customizable with optional seminars! Click here.

Early Summer (8 weeks): Cost: $5,895
May 29 – July 21, 2017  (Apply by: March 15, 2017)

Late Summer (6 weeks): Cost: $4,995
June 26 – Aug 4, 2017  (Apply by: March 31, 2017)

Extended Deadlines! Full summer and early summer programs in Bishkek, Batumi, Kiev, and Odessa are still accepting applications through April 25! Batumi, Georgia and Odessa, Ukraine are additional locations open for summer RSL programs.

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: Coexistence and Religion (SRAS-Tbilisi, Georgia)

Deadline for Applications: March 30, 2017

Coexistence and Religion
History, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in Georgia

Georgia has always been a land of multiple faiths: Judaism, Islam, Christian Orthodoxy, and Paganism have a long and unique history of coexistence. In the three-week course, we’ll begin in Tbilisi at the Georgian-American University where you’ll hear lectures on the role of religious traditions in the history and current life of Georgia, followed by thematic lectures on religious and secular traditions in Georgia. Topics will include: Church music, spiritual art, church and temple architecture, the unique history of Georgian Jews, Islam in Georgia, the persistence of paganistic practices, and the era of Soviet Official Atheism.

We will learn to reflect upon and better understand religious traditions, issues, questions, and values in Georgia, thereby enhancing and expanding our understanding of how religion and spirituality shape our own lives.

Lectures will be enhanced and extended through outside nonfiction and fiction readings, daily discussion sessions, and frequent visits to museums, galleries, and local sites. In the classroom, you’ll learn the history and the contemporary context; in the field, you’ll come to understand how religion and spirituality are interwoven into the landscape of Georgia.

– Dates and Costs –

Summer: $4,495*
May 28 – June 17, 2017  (Apply by March 30, 2017)

Program Add-ons:
Russian language study extension in Batumi, Georgia or Kiev, Ukraine: $395 per week
Security and Society Summer School, Course block 2 (June 18 – July 7) – $2,995

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: Security and Society Summer Program (SRAS-Warsaw, Poland)

Deadline for Applications: March 15, 2017

Security and Society
A Flexible Course for the Modern Age
in the Heart of Central Europe

Security and Society is a wide-ranging program designed to take full advantage of Poland’s many educational opportunities and provide students with a new perspective on global issues. This program is both an intensive and flexible experience – and one that is highly supportive of opportunities for personal and professional growth, including focussed research, internships, and independent travel in the region.

The semester offering focuses on Security and Society in the Information Age. We examine current issues such cybersecurity, information warfare, and how new and social media are changing the face of modern democracies. The Summer School session takes a broad but intensive approach looking at traditional and contemporary security issues. These range from maintaining international partnerships to developing domestic criminal justice and healthy ecological, demographic, entrepreneurial, and civic environments. Both semester and summer sessions offer a look at a case-study of one of the worst security failures of modern history: the Holocaust.

Security and Society is based in Warsaw, Poland, an excellent vantage to study all these issues. Poland was partitioned and dominated by foreign rule multiple times and suffered some of worst atrocities of WWII and the Holocaust. Taking its security issues particularly seriously, Poland has, in its post-Communist era, rapidly improved its economy and ecology, worked to build inclusive political and civic structures, and has taken active leadership roles in its region and in the wider EU.

This program is for students of a range of disciplines – from sociology/political science and journalism to history, business, and computer science – who are interested in better understanding security issues as they exist in today’s world. This program is excellent preparation for a range of graduate programs, including security  studies, homeland security, international relations, urban planning, and law enforcement. Students will gain a powerful understanding of the modern world, often through the lens of history.

This program offers a wide range of internship opportunities in areas related to all of the fields of study offered. Knowledge of Polish language is not required.

For more information, and to apply, click here.

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Academic Program: The Cuban-Russian Connection Summer Program (SRAS)

Deadline for Applications: March 01, 2017

The Cuban-Russian Connection
War and Revolution Remembered

Neither modern Cuba nor Russia can be understood without understanding the wars, revolutions, and communist forces they have experienced over the past century. The Cuban-Russian Connection explores how identity formation in each of these fascinating countries is carried out via culture, language, history, and religion. Cuba and Russia have both played important, strategic, and very often interrelated roles in US foreign policy. Understanding both countries is essential to understanding US interests in today’s changing geopolitical landscape.

The Cuban-Russian Connection will spend one week experiencing Cuba in tradition and transition and then move to three weeks of course work and excursions in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The course will cover  the Russian-American relationship from the 18th to the 20th century; the Soviet-Cuban relationship, including a comparison of the two revolutions (1917 and 1959); and the cultural impact of the Cuban Revolution on the USSR and modern Russia. Class discussions will consider the political triangle of Cuba/US/Russia that evolved from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the present. In Russia, we will also focus on selected topics in Russian culture and history: peasants and nobles, church and state, with special focus on the Revolution. Continue reading “Academic Program: The Cuban-Russian Connection Summer Program (SRAS)”

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CFP: “Privacy Outside Its ‘Comfort Zone’: Late Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe between the Private and the Public” (U. of Passau)

Deadline for Submissions: February 28, 2017

“Privacy” is a well-researched yet highly disputed concept in Western scholarship. While most privacy research comes from and concentrates on Western liberal societies, great potential of privacy studies beyond this traditional framework still remains largely unexplored. The framework of Western liberal societies may therefore be seen not only as a “comfort zone” of privacy studies, but also as a barrier that often limits the potential of the research. This conference aims at elucidating the problems and the perspectives of privacy studies beyond the traditional liberal framework by bringing together scholars and PhD students who work on the concept of “privacy” in the context of Late Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe.
A common challenge to privacy researchers of non-Western societies, especially if they come from such a society, is to refute the erroneous misconception of the absence of “privacy” in non-liberal societies, and to embrace the constructions of “privacy” that these local societies offer. This conference endeavors to create a dialogue between scholars and PhD students from all fields of humanities and social and political sciences to discuss the challenges of transgressing the borders of liberal frameworks, the strategies to cope with these challenges, and the perspectives for privacy research that such transgressions offer.

The use of this concept in the context of Late Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe leads to a range of questions that challenge liberal dichotomies and pave the way for alternative visions of “privacy”. These questions are particularly resonant now, in the centennial year of the October Revolution, when its consequences are debated anew. While the liberal concept of “privacy” usually fails in the framework of authoritarian regimes of post-war Europe, the region offers a diversity of other impulses similar to the liberal idea of “privacy”. In the post-war years, Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe witnessed the expansion of the material as well as immaterial private sphere, which did not only come as a result of the changed world order and subsequent transformations of Socialist societies, but can also be seen as a process that was meticulously planned, carried out, and controlled by the authorities of respective countries in an attempt to stabilize their regimes in the process of de-Stalinization. However, we should also consider whether the private sphere, so benevolently tolerated by Socialist states, continuously developed into an enfant terrible that nurtured not only stability, but also the disruptive forces of dissidence and civil rights movements, which ultimately undermined the Socialist bloc from within. These stabilizing and simultaneously disruptive currents of “privacy” within non-liberal societies are of particular interest, as they elucidate the multifaceted nature of this concept.

Participants are therefore asked to revisit and question the concept of “privacy” in liberal contexts as well as within the frameworks of Late Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe by renegotiating the underlying categories within a certain society. The conference will specifically examine ways of addressing the concepts of “privacy” and “publicity” in said contexts by debating the applicable frameworks and by challenging existing approaches. It will further explore the potential of “reverse applicability” by discussing how privacy research in liberal contexts can benefit from other frameworks of privacy—the transfer that is of particular interest now, in the “post-privacy age”, when Snowden’s revelations elucidated the approximations of Western liberal states to the authoritarian models of the past and the present. In the light of such developments, the examination of Late Socialist authoritarian societies becomes advantageous for our understanding of contemporary privacy paradigms. Continue reading “CFP: “Privacy Outside Its ‘Comfort Zone’: Late Socialist Eastern and East-Central Europe between the Private and the Public” (U. of Passau)”

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Academic Program: The Ukrainian Summer Institute (Harvard U.)

Deadline for Applications: March 13, 2017

The Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) invites applications for its 2017 summer program.

Program Dates: June 17 – August 5, 2017
Application Deadlines:

  • March 13 for all applicants seeking financial aid
  • April 17 for applicants seeking an F-1 student visa
  • May 15 for all other applicants

HUSI offers seven weeks of intensive accredited university instruction in Ukrainian studies. The program is designed for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who are concentrating in Ukrainian studies or who wish to broaden their educational experience.

What makes HUSI different? 

  • Study at one of the most prestigious universities in the world
  • Access Harvard’s immense library system
  • Use the largest Ucrainica collection outside Eastern Europe
  • Visit Harvard’s world-renowned museums
  • Take advantage of all that the vibrant city of Cambridge has to offer
  • Socialize with peers and experts at formal and informal gatherings

Read about the HUSI experience in the words of our alumni.

For detailed information about the program, the application process and deadlines go to the HUSI website: www.huri.harvard.edu/husi.html

Additional questions may be directed to Serhiy Bilenky, HUSI Director, at 647-687-4953 or by email atserh.bilenky@utoronto.ca

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