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UPCOMING AND CURRENT NEWS & EVENTS
Poetry of Wisława Szymborska
Co-presented by the UCLA Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the Hammer Poetry Series
Thursday, April 12, 7pm
Polish artist and Holocaust survivor Alina Szapocznikow reflected on the ephemeral condition of human life in her work. This program presents the work of the late Polish poet Wisława Szymborska to provide cultural context for Szapocznikow’s experience. Szymborska, born in Prowent, Poland, in 1923, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996 “for poetry that with ironic expression allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.” Szymborska died earlier this year in Krakow. She was 88. Actress Beata Pozniak and poet-scholars Piotr Florczyk, Roman Koropeckyj, and Stephen Yenser read from her works, both in English and in their original Polish.
POETRY - This series of readings is organized and hosted by Stephen Yenser, poet and professor at UCLA and author of A Boundless Field: American Poetry at Large and Blue Guide.
ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE - Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required. Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00pm, bikes park for free and many public transit lines run directly to the museum. Please see the HAMMER website for more information.
Hammer Public Programs
HAMMER Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
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310.443.7000
UCLA ALUMNI DAY 2012
Please join us at UCLA Alumni Day 2012, which will take place on campus on Saturday May 5, 2012. Join thousands of UCLA alumni and their families and friends as they come back to campus for a day of fun, good food, lectures, campus tours and more. Reconnect with old friends and network with new ones.
Make sure to stop by our table at the Info Fair, 9 am to 12 noon, to say hello and catch up with the latest news about our department. To see the Day’s schedule of activities and to sign up: http://alumniday.ucla.edu/2012/schedule/overview.aspx See you there!
THE UCLA SLAVIC DEPARTMENT AND DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC PRESENTS:
The 2012 Poetry and Music Night
Wednesday, March 14, at 6 p.m.
UCLA Royce 314
Pianist: Judith Hansen
Refreshments will be provided
We invite you to come see The Russian Balalaika Orchestra at UCLA on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 from 3:00pm to 4:00pm in Humanities A65.
The Los Angeles Balalaika Orchestra has been called many things: a "phenomenon", and the "best Russian folk instrument orchestra outside Russia".
Listeners have described the orchestra's instrumental soloists, as "virtuosos", and "masters of awe inspiring technique".
World-renowned baritone Vladimir Chernov, returning for his third concert with the orchestra, has been recognized for his "unique vocal qualities, acting ability and impeccable style".
http://www.russianstrings.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Liw4G-CfVJ8
Soviet History through Soviet Film Series (VI): The Fate of a Man
CEES film screening and discussion. Discussant: Michael Heim, UCLA, Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Tuesday, January 17, 6:30 PM
11630F Charles E. Young Research Library
Soviet History through Soviet Film Series (VII): Spring on Riverside Street
CEES film screening and discussion. Discussant: David MacFadyen, UCLA, Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Tuesday, January 31, 6:30 PM
11630F Charles E. Young Research Library
Soviet History through Soviet Film Series (VIII): Dersu Uzala
CEES film screening and discussion. Discussant: Margarita Nafpaktitis, UCLA, Young Research Library.
Tuesday, February 14, 6:30 PM
11630F Charles E. Young Research Library
Soviet History through Soviet Film Series (IX): Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
CEES film screening and discussion. Discussant: Gail Kligman, UCLA, Sociology.
Tuesday, February 28, 6:30 PM
11630F Charles E. Young Research Library
Soviet History through Soviet Film Series (X): Freedom is Paradise
CEES film screening and discussion. Discussant: Michael Heim, UCLA, Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Tuesday, March 13, 6:30 PM
11630F Charles E. Young Research Library
Sponsors: Center for European and Eurasian Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Young Research Library
By Joan Springhetti November 30, 2011; UCLA Newsroom
Haerle in Catherine Palace ballroom, St. Petersburg
Alyssa Haerle felt her first twinges of love for Russia in the Model United Nations program at her community college. It wasn't until she transferred to UCLA and connected with the Slavic languages department and the Russian Flagship Program that she went head over heels.
She took Russian classes. She spent a summer studying in Moscow. Her Russian improved. She came back, spent another year at UCLA working toward her major in political science. She took more classes in Russian. She picked up a $20,000 scholarship and is now spending a full year in Russia, studying and doing research. Every week or so she updates her blog, "From Russia With Love."
Haerle, 22, is among the nearly 2,400 UCLA students who study abroad each year. But she is among just 80 who are spending a full year abroad — and just one of two doing so in Russia. The numbers of university students who study abroad has been climbing, but most do so for a semester or less.
Half of all UCLA study-abroad students are bound for just five countries, four of which are in Western Europe: Spain, the U.K., France and Italy. The other is China. By contrast, UCLA students headed to all of Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and the Middle East together represent less than 10 percent of the total.
"Alyssa is definitely bucking the trend by spending a full year abroad, and by being in Russia," said Hadyn Dick, director of the International Education Office at UCLA, which oversees study-abroad programs. "But there's no right or wrong duration or destination for study abroad. It depends on what the student wants to achieve." One exception: If the goal is to become fluent in a new language, the longer the immersion, the greater the success.
In Haerle's case, UCLA's Russian Flagship Program provided a pathway to become immersed in Russian and study at St. Petersburg State University — the affiliated campus.
This year, the flagship program sent seven UCLA students to Russia, six for the summer, (including Haerle) and two for the academic year: Haerle and Gideon Sandford, who is majoring in Russian. The goal of the program is to help students reach a very high level of fluency and social and cultural literacy — the skills needed to actually work in the language.
That's beyond what most students who study a difficult language at the undergraduate level achieve, said Olga Kagan, director of the UCLA Russian Flagship Center and a professor of Slavic languages and literatures. "For students who commit to our program, it is a backbone to their studies."
Students considering extended study abroad start with an eight-week summer session. That's what Haerle first did in 2010. She was propelled by her interest in how social media was being used by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Not unlike President Obama, he embraces it as a key way to get his messages out, using blogs, websites, a YouTube channel and Twitter. Haerle's research on Medvedev is published in the UC Undergraduate Journal of Slavic and East/Central European Studies.
"Some students start out with an interest in Russian, and it leads to other interests," said Kagan, who also directs the UCLA Center for World Languages and National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA's International Institute. "I think with Alyssa, it was the opposite. She became interested in online sources of political discourse. Her interest in learning the language developed because she really wanted to understand what was going on."
Of the 26 Language Flagship centers based in the United States, four are focused on Russian. The centers are part of the National Security Education Program, established 20 years ago to boost expertise among American students in languages and cultures considered critical to U.S. national security, among them Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Russian and Swahili.
The National Security Education Program also oversees the highly competitive Boren Scholarships, the source of that $20,000 award that is funding Haerle's yearlong study in Russia. She is one of just two recipients of the scholarship in the UC system this year.
In addition to her language and other coursework, Haerle has had an internship (in the Eureca program at St. Petersburg State University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics) and is doing research on the high-tech complex of Skolkovo, near Moscow.
Haerle lives in St. Petersburg with a Russian family — a couple and their 13-year-old daughter. Her room has a desk, TV and rocking chair. On days that they don't have too much homework, Haerle and her host-sister watch American films in Russian. Since arriving, she has made new friends and connected with old ones. She's also developed an appreciation for kvas, the popular Russian drink made from fermented dark or rye bread.
A California native, Haerle grew up in tiny Green Valley (pop. 1,027) in northeastern Los Angeles County. Being away from her family for an extended period and experiencing the cold of a Russian winter have been new experiences, which will be interrupted when she makes a trip home for two weeks over the Christmas holiday.
After graduating from UCLA in the spring — and after fulfilling a federal service requirement — she'd like to go to graduate school in business. The service requirement is attached to the Boren scholarship: Within three years, Haerle must spend a year working for a branch of the federal government. In the current tight job market, the requirement may seem more like a benefit than an obligation. She hopes she'll get a posting at the State Department and be focused on economic relations between the United States and the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, Haerle's Russian is improving all the time. She reads trade magazines and newspapers and is in the midst of a detective novel, "Azazel," by Boris Akunin. "The biggest indicator for me of my current language level is the switch in goals from expressing myself in an understandable way to expressing myself in a way that is appropriate to the situation ... in terms of intonation, word choice, sentence construction and sophistication," she said.
Haerle noted that President Medvedev has recently opened an official account on Vkontakte, a Russian social networking site similar to Facebook. "What will be interesting to see is whether or not Medvedev maintains his active Internet presence after his presidential term is over in 2012," she said. His comfort with social media has distinguished him from Vladimir Putin, the former president and current prime minister who is expected to succeed Medvedev in March.
Haerle said she knows she made the right decision to follow her interests — in politics, social media and economic development — as they led her to Russia and a year immersed in its language and culture. "Also," she said, "Russian food is absolutely delicious," and in the United States "there is no fresh kvas.
PAST EVENTS
Russian Placement Exam
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
1:00pm in Hum A26
April 20th
THE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
PRESENTS
A PUBLIC LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR DANIEL WEISS
ZURICH UNIVERSITY
Vladimir Putin’s Verbal Behavior:
A Pragmatic Portrait
WEDNESDAY
APRIL 20
3:30 PM
311 HUMANITIES BUILDING
May 10th
In the Mirror's Reflection
April 30th
Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies
FOURTEENTH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON SLAVIC AND EAST/CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES
You are invited to participate in the Fourteenth Annual University of California Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies. The conference will be held on Saturday, 30 April 2011, on the UCLA campus.
PURPOSE
One of the greatest benefits of knowing a foreign language is being able to use source materials in that language. This conference will give students the opportunity to integrate their language skills with research on some aspect of Slavic or East/Central European studies and to present their work in a friendly and supportive environment. Presenting a conference paper is an ideal way to strengthen graduate school applications or add an academic component to your resume. In addition, those interested have the opportunity to submit their papers for peer-reviewed publication in the on-line UCLA Journal of Slavic and East/Central European Studies (http://www.international.ucla.edu/languages/slavicjournal).
TOPICS
Your project may be an extension of a paper for a Slavic or East/Central European studies class or a project related to your personal interests. You may work alone or jointly with another student. Instructors from your campus Slavic, Russian or East/Central European Studies program will serve as project advisors. Any undergraduate enrolled in a Slavic or East/Central European language, literature, linguistics, history, political science, music, folklore, or other class may participate. Graduate students are invited to serve as panel moderators.
REQUIREMENTS
The paper must incorporate some materials in a Slavic or other East/Central European language. Your level of proficiency will determine the extent to which foreign language materials should be used. For example, beginning students might incorporate titles of books or articles or place names in the relevant Slavic language; intermediate students might read some passages from relevant sources; advanced students might base their paper on sources in the given language. Individual presentations should be 10-15 minutes in length; joint presentations should be 15-20 minutes in length.
DEADLINES
Monday, 28 March 2011: Submission of proposal to a faculty member on your campus.
Monday, 11 April 2011: Submission of paper title, short abstract, and request for technical equipment to the conference coordinator, Antanina Sergieff (
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).
INFORMATION
For more information, please contact a Slavic studies faculty member on your campus or Antanina Sergieff(
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), Roman Koropeckyj (
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), or Yelena Furman (
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) at UCLA.
IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE
If you would like to participate in the conference, please submit a proposal (a title and a one-sentence description) for your presentation to a faculty member on your campus as well as to Antanina Sergieff (
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), the conference program coordinator, by Monday, 28 March 2011.
By Monday, 11 April 2011, you must send the following information to Ms. Antanina Sergieff (
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).
1) Your name as you would like it to appear in the conference program.
2) Your school and major(s)/minor(s).
3) The exact title of your presentation.
4) A short abstract. This is a paragraph describing the topic of your paper. It will be included in the conference program.
5) Do you need any technical equipment? Computer data projector? VCR or DVD player with monitor? Portable CD/DVD player? Slide projector? Overhead projector? Other? Do you plan to do a Power Point presentation?
6) Your email address. Unless you request otherwise, this will be included in the conference program.
For more information: http://www.russian.ucla.edu/conference/uconference/Welcome.html
March 7th
2011 Russian Poetry and Music Night
THE UCLA SLAVIC DEPARTMENT AND DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC PRESENT:
The 2011 Russian Poetry and Music Night
Pianists:
Judith Hansen
Sanaz Rezai
Monday, March 7, at 7 p.m.
Popper Theatre, Schoenberg Music Building, UCLA
Check out the You Tube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxdSz5tfdkI
February 18th
February 14th
February 8th and 9th
THE DEPARTMENT OF
SLAVIC LANGUAGES & LITERATURES
IN COOPERATION WITH
THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES
PRESENTS
FOUR LECTURES ON IMPERIAL RUSSIAN CULTURE
I
ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2:00 TO 3:30 PM IN HUMANITIES 311
Alexander Spektor (Harvard University):
Narrative Ethics in “Krotkaia,”or Why Dostoevsky Is Important for Contemporary Literary Theory
Yanina Arnold (University of Michigan)
Literature and the Spectacle of Law
in Late Imperial Russia”
II
ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 4:00-5:30, IN HUMANITIES 311
Daria Khitrova (University of Chicago)
The Uses of Poetry: Elegy and Courtship in Nineteenth-Century Russia
Kirill Ospovat (Russian State University of the Humanities)
The Birth of Novel from the Spirit of History:
Pushkin's The Blackamoor of Peter the Great”
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