CREES: Are there things you wish you could have accomplished during your time as Director but couldn’t? A great idea that we started but have not yet finished, due to Title VI budget cuts, was the “Slavic Great Plains” website, a clearinghouse for events relating to and businesses working in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. That’s a project that I really hope CREES will finish in the future. I’ve also been working on a history of CREES – it’s currently in draft form. I hope that another director will want to finish this project. It’s crucial for a Center to know where it has been while looking ahead to where it is going. And this history provides golden material for defining area studies and their central importance for the ongoing struggle to make Americans into multilingual citizens of the world. CREES:While you were Director of CREES, you published a book on the post-Soviet Russian mindset, Russia on the Edge: Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity. How did your term as Director of an area studies center influence you as you wrote this book? That book was mainly finished by the time I became director, though I wrote the last chapter on the North Caucasus and the conclusion in 2008 and 2009. Being in CREES and talking on a regular basis with geographers and working with REES students gave me insight into the ways that specialists in other disciplines think about the issue of imagined geographies. Some call it mental mapping, some—cognitive geography.Various Laird Brownbag talks, such as those by Geography graduate students Austen Thelen and Austin Charron, outlined social science perspectives on imagined geography that have been useful in my research. Working at CREES has piqued my interest in Central Asia, a real intellectual benefit that led to the development of a new course on “Central Asia under Russian Eyes” and to new grant developments. And it has spurred me to turn my attention to understanding imagined geographies of Russian citizens living in the peripheries of Russia. CREES: Over the past few years there have been a lot of changes in the REES academic program – we now have an MA portfolio instead of the more traditional exam; we have added an honors program for undergraduates, etc. Why were these changes so important? Certainly the accomplishment of which I am most proud is finding new sources of support for our CREES graduate students. Traditionally, FLAS Fellowships, the assistant editor position at the Russian Review, and the Bramlage Family Foundation Fellowship have been the only available sources of funding. Since the CREES MA is a professional degree, and we teach only two high-enrollment REES courses, we have never been able to offer an incoming graduate student a teaching assistantship. Since 2010 we have significantly enlarged the pool of funds for supporting graduate study. Because of two large grants from the Army Research Office we now offer the FMSO-CREES graduate research assistantship for open-source research on security-related questions in the REES region. Thankfully, the “new” army now defines “security” broadly, to include a large number of cultural, sociological, and political issues. Thanks to the generosity of Peter Jarosewycz,
4 CREES NEWSLETTER
who endowed the Jarosewycz Family Scholarship, each year we can partially fund a student in Ukrainian Studies. Norman Saul (History, emeritus) has funded student travel to conferences, libraries, and archives. Training our students in understanding, using, and seeing the result of genuinely interdisciplinary methodologies and research tools has been an enlivening experience.The goals of all our academic programs are two-fold, both broad and specialist.We aim to reach as many KU undergraduates and graduates as possible, to contribute to KU’s strategic goal of “building international communities” by taking abroad an array of KU students, who then start to envision themselves as part of that international community. The professional goal of CREES is to educate area specialists who can combine their foreign language skills and area knowledge with all kinds of career paths. CREES: You have seen several generations of REES students pass through the Center, what advice would you give to graduating students? I would tell them that area studies are now a crucial part of their set of special skills.Two years in the REES MA program has given them the opportunity to gain a more profound knowledge of their particular region and strongly enhance their foreign language skills. They need to be proactive in seeking internships and job opportunities in a variety of areas; develop a network of area studies and professional contacts; and even after graduate school continue to deepen their area knowledge and language skills.
“My first visit to KU just happened to coincide with a particularly bad snow storm. I’ll never forget how Professor Clowes picked me up from my hotel and drove me around the snow filled streets of Lawrence just so I could see the campus. Her generosity and enthusiasm were some of the reasons I made the decision to attend KU.”
Twelve Chairs? No: One Chair, Twelve Years
Reflections from Outgoing SLL Chair Marc L. Greenberg
After 12 years of service, Marc L. Greenberg stepped down as Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in December 2011, just short of the thirteen-year record set by his predecessor, Stephen J. Parker. In the following interview, Professor Greenberg reflects on his experiences as Chair and shares his thoughts on the SLL and CREES tradition at KU.
John Korba SLL PhD “I will always associate the novel ‘Brothers Karamazov’ with Professor Clowes. In her class, she provided anecdotes and insights that were fascinating, and she was able to deepen the context of the novel in a way that made it come alive. It’s easily still one of my favorite books, and I attribute that to the love and attention Edith gave to not only the book, but also to her students.”
CREES: Let’s talk a little about the near 50% cut to the CREES Title VI grant budget. Does this spell the end of the CREES Program?
Lindsey Collier BA Class of 2004
No, the Title VI cuts certainly do not spell the end of CREES, though they could mean the downsizing of certain specializations.There will certainly be a new competition in 2014, which CREES will be well poised to win because of its unique geographical location, its partnership with Ft. Leavenworth, its excellent faculty, and the significant level of KU’s institutional support. KU and other state universities are being privatized, which means that fundraising and constant application for a broad array of grants will be more important than ever. CREES: What advice do you have for future CREES Directors? Amid all the reporting and multitasking take time to ponder the big picture. Be sure to include events that give you a lot of pleasure and help you to grow intellectually. CREES: Tell us a little bit about your new position at the University of Virginia. What are your upcoming plans? I will be the Brown-Forman Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures. The challenge will be to enhance Slavic and REES area studies, both of which have suffered setbacks in the last 20 years, in the context of a new institute of global humanities and various other initiatives. I will not be in an administrative position, which will give me time to pursue research projects with greater intensity.The coming year will be all about joining a new community, building new teaching, research, and outreach networks, listening to the aspirations of everyone on the Virginia team—students, administrators, and faculty, and working out a game plan for further fundraising and grant writing. CREES: Will you come back and visit us? Of course! KU and CREES have been central to my life as a Slavist and an area studies specialist. I will always stay in touch with the CREES team and faculty and will be delighted to develop further opportunities for collaboration.
CREES: You were chair of SLL at a time when several Slavic and Russian programs across the country were dismantled or significantly reduced in size. Why do you think that KU SLL has survived and even thrived during such a period? A number of factors came into play. If I step back, I cannot chalk it all up to program quality, though I think that is a significant part of it. Rather, our survival is also a function of the KU culture—we reflect Midwestern values in our departmental and institutional decisions. Rather than reconfigure or jettison programs to chase the latest trends, we reevaluated our area of the world and came to the conclusion that Russia would continue to be an area worthy of study and that the study of language, literature, and culture were essential. Moreover, our specialization in the Western Balkans has been fruitful because it is an intrinsically interesting region and we also have unique strengths in this area. Kansas Slavic is known world-wide for its long association with scholarship and outreach, especially with regard to the western parts of the former Yugoslavia—Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia—and that reputation has never been more robust than it is now. CREES: You oversaw the hiring of what seems like a new generation of faculty and staff in the Slavic Department. Tell us about some of these hires and how they fit into the vision for the Department’s future. We have been fortunate to find exceptional young talents and we thought outside of the box as much as possible in hiring them. Stephen Dickey brought to our unit expert knowledge of Slavic verbal aspect, a key feature of Slavic grammar. He is also an important translator of contemporary Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian literature. Knowing that we wanted broad coverage of the Western Slavic cultural realm but that we could not afford to hire Czech and Polish specialists in separate lines, we set out to find a scholar who was equally at home with both languages and lit-
eratures. Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova turned out to be that rare scholar who not only speaks both languages with near-native facility, but is also well read in both traditions. Her work on the Bildungsroman in Poland and the Czech Republic, examining protagonists who came of age in the last phase of communism, will help us get a better grasp of this era that we are just now beginning to see more clearly in historical retrospect. Renee Perelmutter brings to our area further depth in Slavic linguistics with a focus on discourse studies and also teaches Yiddish language, Jewish folklore and secular culture. Renee helps us broaden and deepen our coverage of Eastern Europe, adding the Jewish “other” element that we had previously lacked in our program. Our newest hire is Ani Kokobobo, a promising scholar of Tolstoy and 19th C. Russian literature. Although her area of specialization is one of the traditional mainstays of our field, Ani brings fresh thematic approaches to the study of Russian literature and writes with a lively style. She will help nurture a new generation of scholars who bring new perspectives to the rich philosophical literature of Russia. What is remarkable about the last three hires is that they each come from different places that are worlds apart from Kansas: Svetlana is from Bulgaria, Renee is from Ukraine and Israel, and Ani is from Albania and New York. Their life experience also becomes part of the fabric of the human element at KU and they enrich us all with their ability to mediate culture not just from the study of it, but also from living across cultures. KU is all the richer for their being here. I would be remiss if I failed to mention our lecturers, Irina Six and Marta Pirnat. Irina brings expertise in Russian business language and culture to our curriculum (thoroughly postSoviet topics) and Marta is a rare authentic carrier of both Slovene and Croatian language and culture, which add unique strengths to our program. Marta recently published Colloquial Slovene in the highly regarded Routledge Colloquial series, which speaks highly of the quality of our department’s second-language acquisition expertise. CREES: How would you describe the relationship between SLL and CREES? What do you see as key in maintaining a strong bond between the two departments? SLL and CREES have always been closely connected, as well they should be.The College motto is “Learning without Boundaries” and I think it applies well to this relationship. There is no boundary between the cultures of a region and their languages, geography, arts, history, politics, and
economics. To understand a region one must understand the complex interaction of all of these areas and more. In SLL we focus on language, literature, and culture, but we value the network of connections to other disciplines that CREES provides. I think the relationship is mutually enriching. CREES: Is there something you wish you had known when you first began your position as Chair? Any advice for the new SLL Chair? For the new CREES Director? Had I known of the successes to come it would have been easier to bear the crises. Having been chair for nearly 12 years, I value the strengthening of character and development of patience that being a chair helped me to achieve. CREES: While you were Chair, the long lost Russian Jayhawk was found. What is the Russian Jayhawk and why is he so important? Actually, the Russian Jayhawk was not lost—it was well taken care of in the University Archives, most notably by Becky Schulte, who is not only an expert curator but also knows more about the history of the Jayhawk than anyone. My contribution was to dig up the historical background of the Russian statuette (more at http:// hdl.handle.net/1808/6896). The Russian Jayhawk is important because he illuminates the long international commitments and record of service that KU has had to our world area, dating at least as far back as 1917, the time of the carving, and probably even earlier. CREES: What is your favorite piece of Slavic or East European literature, and what does your choice say about you? It would be impossible to choose a single piece of Slavic art, visual, musical, or literary, that is a favorite—art takes on meaning in context, including the relationship of one work of art to another. But if I had to choose one that is meaningful to reflect on my own experience, I would choose Drago Jancar’s Posmehljivo poželenje (which, by the way, has been masterfully translated into English by KU PhD Michael Biggins as Mocking Desire). The story is (in part) about the discovery of what is essential about one’s own culture through the perspective of another. This story encapsulates a lesson I try to impart to students: you never see the world in three dimensions until you have lived meaningfully in another culture. Perspective is everything.
FALL 2012
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