Russian Studies

Indiana University is deeply committed to the study of the language, culture, history, and politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Since the early 1950s, Indiana University has administered one of the nation’s largest programs in Russian Studies. In its Russian and East European Institute (REEI) and Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, IU offers:

• One of the largest concentrations of Russian studies specialists in the United States;
• Five years of language instruction during the academic year, a summer intensive language program with nine levels (1st through 6th year) of Russian and language across the curriculum courses in Russian;
• Library resources to support advanced research in Russian studies.

Faculty

More than 30 Indiana University faculty members are native or fluent speakers of Russian and focus on Russia's history, politics, economics, geography, language, literature and culture as their areas of specialization. The following list includes those who focus their teaching and research primarily on Russia:

Anthropology

Sarah Phillips, Associate Professor of Anthropology (Ph.D., University of Illinois), was appointed in 2003. She teaches courses on the cultures and societies of Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia. Her dissertation explores the roles women play in Ukraine’s new post-Soviet civil society. She has published articles on Chernobyl, Ukrainian folk medicine, and on the topic of gender roles, civil society, and NGOs in Ukraine. She produced a video on village folk healers in Ukraine (2004), and is currently researching and writing about the Ukrainian and Russian disability rights movements. Professor Phillips’ recent publications include Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine (forthcoming 2010), Women's Social Activism in the New Ukraine: Development and the Politics of Differentiation (2008), “Civil Society and Disability Rights in Post-Soviet Ukraine: NGOs and Prospects for Change” (2009), “‘There Are No Invalids in the USSR!’ A Missing Soviet Chapter in the New Disability History” (2009), “Chernobyl’s Sixth Sense: The Symbolism of an Ever-Present Awareness” (2004). She is also editor of the of the Anthropology of East Europe Review (AEER), a biannual edited journal of scholarship on Eastern Europe, Russia, the Balkans, and Central Asia, and a member of the editorial board of Disability Studies Quarterly, the journal of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS).

Communication and Culture

Joshua S. Malitsky, Assistant Professor of Communication and Culture (Ph. D. Northwestern University). His teaching and research interests include documentary history, theory, and criticism; non-fiction film and nation-building; intersections between documentary, ethnographic film, and the avant-garde; early Soviet cinema; Cuban cinema; West African cinema; realism; and sports media. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Post-Revolution Non-Fiction Film: Building the Soviet, Yugoslav, and Cuban Nations. His recent publications include “Ideologies in Fact: Still and Moving-Image Documentary in the Soviet Union, 1927-1932” (2010), “Actor-Network Theory and Documentary Studies”(2010), “Esfir Shub and the Film Factory-Archive: Soviet Documentary from 1925-1928” (2004).

Criminal Justice

William Pridemore, Professor of Criminal Justice (PhD, State University of New York, Albany), was appointed in 2003. He is a member of the National Consortium on Violence Research and spent a year as a Research Fellow at Harvard University in the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. His main research interest is the impact of social structure, economic transition, and alcohol consumption on homicide and suicide in Russia. Dr. Pridemore's research is interdisciplinary and has been published in leading journals of several disciplines, including criminology, sociology, public health, and area studies. He also recently edited a volume on law, crime, and justice in transitional Russia, which was published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Economics

Michael Alexeev, Professor of Economics (PhD, Duke University), came to Indiana University in 1992. He teaches courses on Soviet-type economies, economic transitions, and other topics in economics. His research interests include the economies of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, consumer and enterprise behavior, privatization, inflation, income distribution and taxation policy.

Fine Arts

Janet Kennedy, Professor of Fine Arts (PhD, Columbia University), was appointed to IU in 1975. She teaches courses on Russian art, integrating Russian history into her subject matter. Her research interests include stage design for Russian ballet and opera productions, as well as more general research on issues of nationalism, nostalgia, and gender and sexuality in Russian art of the early 1900s. Janet Kennedy has written numerous articles, many of which are related to the Russian art of the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) movement. Her recent work has focused on visual arts, theater, and music.

Geography

Roman Zlotin, Senior Lecturer in Geography (PhD, Academy of Sciences in Moscow), first came to IU in 1992 as a Visiting Professor. He teaches courses on Soviet and Russian geography, environment and public health. He has published numerous articles and books on a wide range of topics related to Soviet and Eurasian ecosystems and the environment.

History

Ben Eklof, Professor of History (PhD, Princeton University), has taught at Indiana University since 1977. He teaches courses on Imperial and Soviet Russian history and the Gorbachev Revolution. Professor Eklof has done extensive research on education in Russia in the late Imperial period and is director of the Institute for the Study of Russian Education.

Hiroaki Kuromiya, Professor of History (PhD, Princeton University), was appointed to IU in 1990. Kuromiya has taught courses on Ukrainian history, Russian history through film, and the Russian revolution and Soviet regime. His current research interests are 20th century Ukrainian history, Stalinism, and modern Russian history.

David Ransel, Robert F. Byrnes Professor of History (PhD, Yale University), came to IU in 1985. He teaches a survey course on Russian history. He researches the social and family history of Russia as well as histories of political clienteles, charity and village life in Russia. His publications include Polish Encounters, Russian Identity (2005), Village Mothers: Three Generations of Change in Russia and Tataria (2000) and Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire (1998). He recently published a monograph on the Russian merchant family titled A Russian Merchant’s Tale: The Life and Adventures of Ivan Alekseevich Tolchënov, Based on His Diary (2009). He is currently working on a study of two generations of workers in the industrial suburbs of Moscow, and studies of Russian travelers in eighteenth-century Russia.

Toivo Raun, Professor of History (PhD, Princeton University), was appointed to IU in 1990. His courses include Finland in the 20th century, Uralic Peoples, Empire and Ethnicity in Modern Russian History, Estonian Culture and Civilization and The Baltic States Since 1918. His current research interests include a survey history of the Baltic peoples and states, agrarian reform and political parties in interwar Estonia, and literacy and its impact in Estonia.

Jeffrey Veidlinger, Professor of History, and Director and Alvin H. Rosenfeld Chair of Jewish Studies Program. His first book, The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage, received a National Jewish Book Award, the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History, and was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine. He is currently working on a book entitled, Jewish Public Culture in Late Imperial Russia. The book examines the means by which Jewish voluntary associations, such as drama circles, literary clubs, historical societies, folk music societies and even fire brigades, helped define Jewish cultural identity within the Russian Empire. He is also co-directing the Indiana University Yiddish Ethnographic Project, which collects videotaped oral histories of Yiddish-speakers in Ukraine about Jewish life in the region before the Second World War. Professor Veidlinger teaches courses in Jewish History and Russian History.

Political Science

William Fierman, Professor of Central Eurasian Studies (PhD, Harvard University), was appointed to IU in 1991. He teaches courses on Soviet and Post-Soviet Nationalities and Problems and Post-Soviet Transition in Central Asia. His research interests include language policy in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and political development and social problems in Central Asia.

Regina Smyth, Associate Professor of Political Science (PhD, Duke University), arrived at IU in 2006. Professor Smyth's research explores the relationship between democratic development and electoral competition by focusing on candidates, political parties and party systems in post-Communist states. Her teaching interests extend from her research. She has taught courses on Russian and Soviet Politics, Democracy and Elections, Comparative Democratic Institutions, Comparative Parties and Party Systems, Voter Turnout, and West European Politics.

Dina Spechler, Associate Professor of Political Science (PhD, Harvard University), has taught at IU since 1984. She teaches Russian and Soviet Foreign Policy, International Relations, Cold War and After, Model United Nations, Comparative Foreign Policy, and Force and Diplomacy in the Nuclear Age. Her research interests include the decline of Soviet and American military intervention in Third World conflicts, Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe, and Russian and Soviet foreign policy.

Religious Studies

Patrick Lally Michelson, Assistant Professor, PhD, University of Wisconsin, 2007. Russian Orthodoxy, History of Eastern Christianity, Modern Christian thought, Russian intellectual history, Modern Russian history. Patrick was trained as a historian of imperial Russian and modern Europe, with a special focus on the intellectual and institutional history of the Russian Orthodox Church. His current research project focuses on a group of reformist theologians at the Moscow Spiritual Academy, the premier institution of higher education in the Russian Church, who in the last decades of the old regime (1891-1917) sought to reconfigure the doctrines of their faith in accordance with the scholarly demands of contemporary science and the discursive contours of Russian educated society. This study, which mainly relies on the methods of contextual analysis, allows him to investigate a variety of historical problems related to the issues of church and state, faith and reason, and religion and revolution.

In addition to this work, he is in the process of co-editing a volume (with Prof. Judith Kornblatt of the University of Wisconsin) on modern Russian Orthodox thought (1787-1927), which brings together a dozen scholars from several disciplines to examine the various ways in which Orthodoxy was expressed among the church elite during an extended period of cultural change and intellectual fermentation. He also has an article about Russian Orthodox deification presently under consideration for publication in a volume on Vekhi (1909), one of the most important texts in Russian intellectual history.

Beyond the study of Russian Orthodoxy, Patrick's teaching and research interests include Patristic and Byzantine Christianity, the religious Enlightenment, liberal Protestant humanism, Krisis theology, theories of religion, the history of religious ideas, and genres of western religious writing.

Russian Language and Literature

Justyna Beinek, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature, Director of the Polish Language, Literature and Culture Program (PhD, Harvard University). She teaches a variety of courses on Russian and Polish Literature and Culture, including Russian and Soviet Film, Russian and Polish Romanticism, Russian Short Fiction, Pushkin and his Age, Russian Short Story. She is currently working on a monograph on Russian and Polish albums, a monograph on the idea of the "West" in Polish literature and film a volume of essays on Polish-German memory and a guidebook to Witold Gombrowicz.

Olena Chernishenko, Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures (PhD Princeton University). She teaches a variety of courses in Russian and Ukrainian languages, including Advanced Russian, Political Russian, Russian Syntax and Stylistics, Beginning Ukrainian and Ukrainian through Russian. Olena Chernishenko's main research interests are language acquisition, language pedagogy, comparative Slavic linguistics, syntactic theory, and Russian Ukrainian and Czech cultural studies. Her current projects include developing comprehensive placement tests for SWSEEL and the Department of Slavic Languages and Cultures, course development with ICALL implementation for the U.S.-Russia Global Health Care Course Study Program as well as studies in second language acquisition.

Jacob Emery was born in Moscow—the small town in northern Idaho, not the large city in Russia—and comes to Indiana by way of the University of Iowa and Harvard University. He has published stray articles on topics from Thomas Pynchon to Russo-Swedish literary relations, but is primarily engaged in two extended inquiries into the intersection of fictional rhetoric and economic life. Both projects draw inspiration from the theory of figure—especially the ideas formulated within German Romanticism and the tradition stretching from Russian Formalism to deconstruction—and from the anthropological and Marxist approaches that attempt to correlate economic structures and cultural forms.

Jeffrey D. Holdeman, Senior Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Slavic language coordinator (Ph. D. Ohio State University). He teaches a variety of courses on foreign language pedagogy as well as various levels of Russian. His current projects include research projects on Russian Old Believer Immigration to the Eastern U.S. and history and lexicon of the Russian Old Believers of Pennsylvania as well as the development of materials and curriculums for less commonly taught Slavic and East European Languages.

George H. Fowler, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, director of Slavica publishers (Ph. D. University of Chicago). Professor Fowler teaches a variety of courses on Russian Linguistics, including Structure of Russian, Russian word formation, History of the Russian literary language, Readings in Russian culture, history and society. His research interests are Russian morphology and syntax, case in the Slavic languages, linguistic theory.

Steven L. Franks, Chair, Director of Graduate Studies, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Professor of Linguistics, Adjunct Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences (Ph. D. Cornell University). His main research interests are Comparative Slavic morphosyntax, syntactic theory, Slavic phonology and first language acquisition. His classes include Structure of Russian, Comparative Slavic morphosyntax, Syntax and Advanced Syntax. Professor Franks is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Slavic Linguistics.

Maria Shardakova, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Russian Language Program Director (PhD, Bryn Mawr College). She teaches a variety of courses in Russian language program including beginning, intermediate and advanced Russian as well as courses on second language pedagogy and methodology and survey courses on Russian literature and culture. Her research focuses on second language pragmatics, bilingualism and identity, Russian-American cross-cultural communication, and language pedagogy. Currently, she examines second language conversational humor, particularly with respect to how American learners of Russian negotiate their identities through humor.

Miriam Shrager, Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures (PhD, Indiana University). Miriam Shrager's research interests are in comparative, historical Slavic linguistics, accentology, and dialectology. She teaches multiple levels of Russian, Russian for heritage speakers, Phonetics, and a variety of courses in Russian literature and culture, including Russian literature of the 20th century, Russian Culture, Russian Folk Tales and others. Her current projects include linguistic field research dealing with the rare Croatian Chakavian Susak dialect as well as research in phonetics, specifically voicing neutralization in Russian.

Sara Stefani, Visiting Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures (PhD, Yale University). She teaches beginning, intermediate and advanced Russian language classes as well as a variety of courses on Russian literature and culture. Her courses include Russia's Second Golden Age, Literature and the Arts in Russian Modernism and the Avant Garde, Special Topics in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature: Reactions to the Russian Revolution and the New Soviet Society (in Russian), The Family Novel in Nineteenth-Century Russia, and Altered States: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll in Modern Russian Culture. She is currently working on a book manuscript of article length studies on Victor Pelevin's novel Generation P, Venedikt Erofeev's novel Moscow to the End of the Line, the role of the body in Andrei Platonov's The Foundation Pit, modes of communication in Virginia Woolf and Anton Chekhov, and the role of gender and genre in works by Leo Tolstoy, Bohumil Hrabal, and Gertrude Stein.

Many other REEI faculty members specializing in Russian studies serve as mentors for students doing research on Russia. Three specialists in Slavic linguistics provide instruction, mentoring and support to students.

Ariann Stern-Gottschalk, Lecturer and Director of SWSEEL: The Summer Language Workshop (PhD, UCLA). She teaches beginning and intermediate Russian, Old Church Slavonic, Old Russian Literature, and Russian for Graduate Students. Her research interests include language pedagogy and assessment, historical Slavic linguistics, and Yiddish in Poland. Currently, her projects include developing and formalizing language assessment standards for summer language programs.

Academic Program

Indiana University's interdisciplinary program in Russian studies presents students with several options for a course of study on Russia. Students can enroll in up to six years of academic-year and summer Russian language instruction, conducted with the latest methods of performance-based instruction and a multimedia curriculum. Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships are available for graduate students pursuing Russian-language study during either the academic year or summer session.

Faculty whose research focus is Russia teach in the departments of Economics, Geography, Anthropology, History, Political Science, Criminal Justice, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and in the Schools of Business, Fine Arts, Journalism, Library and Information Science, and Public and Environmental Affairs. Our Department of History has a particularly strong concentration of Russian specialists, the largest group outside of Russia itself.

Undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor's degree in virtually any discipline or professional school can include Russian studies in their course work and graduate with a minor from the Russian and East European Institute (REEI). REEI offers a master's degree in Russian and East European studies for students seeking professional careers in government, nonprofit organizations, or private business that require advanced knowledge of the language and culture of Russia. Students pursuing a Ph.D. in most disciplines and professional school graduate students (M.B.A., M.P.A., M.L.S.) can also pursue course work in Russian studies toward a dual M.A. degree, Graduate Area Certificate in Russian and East European Studies, or Ph.D. minor.

Alumni

Indiana University students who complete master's, doctoral, or professional school programs with advanced competency in Russian studies go on to careers in government service, the military, nongovernmental organizations, international development, business, higher education administration, and tenure track university teaching positions. IU graduates have pursued a wide variety of interesting careers in which to use their knowledge of Russian language and area studies. Here is a sample:

Government

Andrew Berrier (M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 2000), U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer.

Hilary Brandt, (B.A. Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1991) Webmaster, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. State Department.

James Collins, (M.A. History, 1964), Senior Advisor, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Washington D.C., career foreign service officer and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, 1997-2001.

Richard Miles, (M.A. Political Science, 1964), career foreign service officer has served as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Georgia, and also as Deputy Chief of mission in Belgrade.

Stefan Osborne, (Ph.D. in Economics, Graduate Area Certificate in Russian and East European Studies in Russia Area Studies, May 1999). He worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, NIS/EE Section and at present is Senior Economist, Office of Agricultural Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Non-Governmental

Eric Batsie (M.P.A. Public Affairs, 1997; B.A. Slavic Languages and Literatures and REEI Certificate, 1994) worked as Director of Moscow Office, Kidsave International (an organization that relocates children from orphanages into stable families) for ten years. Currently, Eric works for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Champaign County (IL).

Eric Boyle (M.A./M.P.A. Russian and East European Studies and Public Affairs, 1999), worked as the Deputy Director of the Armenian/Caucasus Office of Catholic Relief Services in Yerevan, Armenia. He is now the Regional Director of the Eurasia Foundation in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Amy Caiazza (PhD, Political Science, 1999), Study Director, Democracy and Society Programs, Institute of Women’s Policy Research, Washington, D.C.

Sara Feinstein (M.A./M.B.A., Russian and East European Studies and Business Administration, 1999) worked as the Information and Outreach Program Coordinator for the Initiative for Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia, Baku, Azerbaijan. She is currently the Regional Program Manager for ZdravPlus/Abt Associates in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She oversees grant programs, information dissemination, and provides general project management for health care reform program in Central Asia.

Calvin Harris, (J.D. Law 1995; M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 1992), Central and East European Law Initiative (CEELI), Belarus.

Andrew Kohlhepp, (M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 1998), Institute of International Education, Washington, D.C, (involved in USAID program called EcoLinks, which looks at industrial and urban environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia).

Charles Mixon, (M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 1994), Vice President, AIG Capital Partners, (involved in emerging markets private equity, focusing on Central Europe and Russia and investor relations).

Zachary Morford, (M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 1998), Development Staff, Development Alternatives, Inc. (an international consulting firm).

Stephen Nedell, (M.A. and M.L.S., Russian and East European Studies and Library Science, 2000), Donohue Group, Inc., Cataloger, Project Manager and the Office Network Coordinator (called upon occasionally to catalog Russian and other Slavic materials).

Academic

Suzanne Ament (PhD, History, 1996) Assistant Professor of History, Radford University

Sue Brown (PhD, Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1996), Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University.

Stephen Dickey (PhD, Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1997), Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Kansas

Jared Ingersoll, (M.A., Russian and East European Studies, 1990 and M.A., History, 1991), Librarian for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Columbia University (manages library collections, acquisitions and reference, in all disciplines, from and about the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe).

Michaela Pohl, (PhD, History, 1999), Associate Professor of History, Vassar College

Several alumni from the 1990s, whose names are not listed for security reasons, work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and Central Intelligence Agency; and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Summer Language Study

Indiana University has a summer intensive language program open to students from other universities, upper-level high school students, non-degree seeking students, and members of the community, as well as IU students. The Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European and Central Asian Languages (SWSEEL) offers nine levels (1st through 6th year) of Russian language training in a single eight-week summer session each year. By special agreement with the Indiana state legislature, all summer intensive language students pay tuition at the in-state rate ($263.45 per credit hour for undergraduate students, $309.50 per credit hour for graduate students). Fellowship awards for tuition and a stipend are available on a competitive basis. SWSEEL provides a rich and diverse cultural program. Students of Russian may sing in a choir, participate in poetry and drama clubs, and attend films and lectures in Russian.

Study Abroad

Indiana University offers undergraduate students the opportunity to earn IU credit while spending a semester abroad studying at St. Petersburg State University in historic, museum-filled St. Petersburg. Students can live with host families and are immersed in the Russian language, with the opportunity to take courses on grammar, phonetics, conversation, analytical readings, and lectures on Russian literature and contemporary Russian life.

Library

Indiana University's Russian collection ranks among the top research collections in the United States. The library has more than 210,000 volumes in Russian, the richest areas being Reference, History, Diplomacy, Philology, and General Culture. The collection contains the annotated index to Russia's largest social science library (INION), the Social Sciences-Humanities service for 50 major Russian journals, the Universal Database of Russian Newspapers/Serials, and a complete collection of 417 reels of film "Newspapers of the Russian Revolutionary Era.” The total Russian/Soviet collection is approximately 280,000 volumes.

The IU Lilly Library houses a large collection of rare Slavic materials including a treasury of early Slavic Bibles, rare documents on the Russian revolution, many first editions of Slavic belles-lettres and personal papers of the writer Aleksandr V. Amfiteatrov (1862-1938).

Guest Speakers

Guest lectures and special events are an important component of Indiana University's Russian studies offerings. IU has hosted many visits by Russian international scholars and government officials, as well as American specialists. Visitors have included Mikhail Gorbachev, Gennady Zyuganov, Galina Vasilievna Starovoitova, Veronika Dolina, Boris Kagarlitsky, Boris Mironov, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Dan Davidson, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Andrew Nagorski, Artemy Troitsky, James Collins, Anna Sharogradskaya, and the folk group Zolotoi Plyos.

Cultural Activities

There is ample opportunity to explore extracurricular interests through a large cultural program, including guest lectures, folk concerts, film showings, a Russian Cultural Association and a weekly Russian language table. The Russian and East European Institute (Ballantine 565) has a library of films and language videos (instructional and feature films with subtitles) that can be checked out. A Slavic Resource Room in Ballantine 506 is also available for students to view Russian television programs.