Robert F. Byrnes
Russian and East European Institute

The 53d Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), was held in New Orleans, LA on November 18-21, 2021 at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside and in virtual format on December 1-3. A total of 31 IU faculty, staff, and students presented papers and serve as chairs, session managers, or discussants at 37 panels and roundtables, many of which addressed the convention theme: Diversity, Intersectionality, Interdisciplinarity. REEI was honored to serve as a Silver Sponsor of the convention.

 

IU stood out in the Exhibition Hall at booths for REEI and Slavica Publishers. REEI, the Russian Studies Workshop, and the Language Workshop co-hosted the Indiana University Alumni Reception, a perennial highlight at ASEEES, on Friday, November 19 from 8 pm to 10 pm. Generously co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, IU Press, Slavica Publishers, the Polish Studies Center, and the College of Arts and  Science Alumni Association, the festive event brought together old friends and new friends for conviviality and camaraderie over cheese and charcuterie, desserts, wine and other beverages as well as a small formal program, led by REEI Director Sarah Phillips and featuring the presentation of the REEI Distinguished Alumni Award to Elizabeth Lee Roby (see related story on p XXX of this issue).

 

IU and other IN public university/college participants at 2021 ASEEES Annual Convention

 

Faculty/Staff Papers

Michael Alexeev (Economics): The Fiscal Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Russian Regions (with Andrey Yushkov)

Maria Bucur (History): When the Invalids Came Home: Disability in Romania after World War I

Michael Benjamin de Groot (International Studies): A Cold Blizzard of Insolvency: The Soviet Umbrella and the Debt Crisis of the Early 1980s

Ronald Feldstein (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures, Emeritus): Accentological Implications of Jakobson's Morphological Observations on Slavic Declension

Elizabeth Frances Geballe (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): ‘Bring the Interpreter’: Tolstoy’s Fictional Translators

Joshua Malitsky (Cinema and Media Studies): Socialist Newsreel Beyond Limits

K. Andrea Rusnock (Art History, Women’s and Gender Studies/IU South Bend): Partisans in Pictures: Soviet Female Guerrillas during World War Two

Tatiana Saburova (History): Seeing Turkestan from Siberia: Semirech’e between Past and Future in Photographs of Vasilii Sapozhnikov

 

Student Papers

Ani Abrahamyan (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): Between Ethnography and Fiction: Pavel Yakushkin’s Influence on Leskov’s Early Prose

Samuel Fajerstein (History): Transnational Artifacts and Agricultural Technologies: Agricultural Transfer between the US and USSR, 1973-1980

Kathleen Ann Gergely (Political Science): Assessing the Strength of South Caucasian Strategic Triangles: The Russia-Armenia-Iran and Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan Triangles

Alisha Kirchoff (Sociology): Notorious Notarius?: Media, Public Attitudes, and the Reputation of Russia’s Notaries

Szabolcs László (History): Transnational Genealogies: How Uralic and Altaic Studies Traveled from Hungary to the U.S., the 1950s-70s

Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): Publishing Book Reviews on H-Ukraine

John Stanko (Political Science): Kazakhstan's Ambassadorial Corps: Toward an Independent Foreign Policy or Stuck in the Russian Track?

Jessica Ruth Storey-Nagy (Central Eurasian Studies, Anthropology): The Socialist Plant: Materiality, Meaning-Making, and Memory in Contemporary Hungary

Andrey Yushkov (O’Neill School): The Fiscal Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Russian Regions (with Michael Alexeev)

Leah Valtin-Erwin (History): Transnational Intermediaries and the Making of Poland's First Supermarket After 1989

Nikolina Zenovic (Anthropology): Differing 'Mentalities' and Diasporic Erasures: Language Ideologies of Serbian Identities in Chicago

 

Panel Discussants

Wookjin Cheun (IUB Libraries): The Koryo-saram Diaspora: Experiencing “Korean-ness” in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet World

Ben Eklof (History): Late Soviet Ruralism I: Rural Youth of Northwestern Russia and Soviet Minorities, the 1950s-1980s

Joshua Malitsky (Cinema and Media Studies): Transnational Cinematic Collaborations: Konchalovsky, Mészáros, and Grlić

Joanna Niżyńska (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): Engaged Cinema: Investigating (Catholic) Church, Religion, and Ethnicity in Polish Film

Mark Trotter (Russian and East European Institute): In Pursuit of a Modus Vivendi: National Mythmaking in the Soviet Bloc

 

Panel/Roundtable Chairs and Session Managers

Marina Antic (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): Socialism or Barbarism III: Antifascist Art and Culture

Ben Eklof (History): Painting and Photographing Imperial Russia: Visual Histories of Time and Space

Debra Friedman (Second Language Studies): Clashing Ideologies: Language, Identity and Politics in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

Katherine Graber (Central Eurasian Studies, Anthropology): Howard U Undergraduate Think Tank Professional Development I: Funding and Support

Padraic J. Kenney (History): East-Central Europe in the Sixties: Intersections of Culture and Mentalities

Patrick Lally Michelson (Religious Studies): The Past, Present, and Future of Russian Orthodox Studies

Tatiana Saburova (History): Searching for Siberia: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Transnational Perspectives

Jessica Ruth Storey-Nagy (Central Eurasian Studies, Anthropology): Contested Space for Minority Narratives

Mark Trotter (Russian and East European Institute): Addressing Diverse Identities and Perspectives of the Russophone World: Report from Russian Language Classrooms at the Secondary and Postsecondary Levels

 

Roundtable Members

Michael V. Alexeev (Economics): The Russian Economy and Economic Politics: What after COVID-19?

Wookjin Cheun (IU Libraries): Great Collectors of Slavica and East Europeana at University Libraries in Canada, California, and the Midwest (USA)

Padraic J. Kenney (History): Writing Communist History: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Inequality in the Academy

Sarah Drue Phillips (Anthropology): Book Discussion: “Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag,” by Oksana Kis

Veronika Trotter (IU Libraries): Wikimedia Projects in Russian and Eastern European Studies

Russell Scott Valentino (Slavic/East European Languages & Cultures): Searching for Siberia: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Transnational Perspectives

 

Participants from other Indiana-based public universities (apart from IU)

Francine Friedman (Ball State U): Roundtable Chair for The Collapse of Yugoslavia: Is it Over Yet and Was it Historically Relevant?

Amina Gabrielova (Purdue U): Sharov and Krzizhanovsky on Theater and Life/Roundtable Member for The Oeuvre of Vladimir Sharov: Beyond History

Rebekah Klein-Pejsova (Purdue U): Book Discussion Chair and Member for “The Fiume Crisis: Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire,” by Dominique Kirchner Reill/Panel Chair for Refugees in Search of Each Other after WWII

Hubert Izienicki (Purdue U): Roundtable Member for Gender and Sexuality in Polish/Polish American Studies: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?

Olga Lyanda-Geller (Purdue U): Conversations with Socrates: The Image of Socrates in Russian Philosophical Literature/Panel Chair for The Reception of Ancient Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century Russia

Barbara J. Skinner (Indiana State U): Unia as the New Old Belief?Discussant for Solidarity Contested II: Religious, Ethnic, and National Solidarities and Indifference in Russia’s Western Borderlands, the 1830s-1930s