Excerpts From the 2006-2007 Annual Report

1. NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures continues on its path of building on its core strengths in teaching and research.  With successful hires over the last three years, the Slavic Department has been able to offer new and innovative courses in response to student demand

With the addition of Katia Dianina to our faculty at the outset of the 2006–2007 academic year, the Slavic Department has introduced an important new dimension to our undergraduate and graduate curriculum.  An established scholar with research interests in the nexus between literature, visual culture, and national identity in Russia, Professor Dianina will be launching new courses dealing with the issue of national identity.  She has already taught a course that we have not been able to give for several years: an introduction into the methods and tools of literary criticism for advanced undergraduate students of Russian.  Another colleague, Margarita Nafpaktitis, successfully completed the Third-Year Review assessment, and her outstanding talents as a teacher were recognized this year with the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award.  Margarita also introduced a new course on Russian cinema in the fall semester.  Finally, Lilia Travisano, in her second year as a full-time Assistant Professor taught a new course for our graduate students on methods of teaching Russian language, thus helping to fulfill our goal of providing our graduate students for the best preparation possible for a competitive job market.

The addition of new faculty has the effect of adding energy to our undergraduate program.  The enrollment in our literature and culture courses has surged, and we saw a significant increase in the number of Russian Studies and Russian Language and Literature majors receiving the B.A. degree at commencement this year.  Nineteen students received the B.A. in 2007, compared with twelve in 2006, an increase of fifty-eight percent.  On the graduate level, we continue to attract strong candidates.  Two of our entering class of seven graduate students have been awarded President’s Fellowships.  In May 2007, four students received the M.A. degree, and we have two students in the final stages of dissertation preparation.  One of these students has already accepted a full-time position as Lecturer in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at Brigham Young University.

2. OUTSTANDING FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Faculty members in the Slavic Department continue to maintain impressive programs of teaching, research, and service both within the University and on a national and international scale.  The success of our faculty in these areas is reflected in the numbers of awards and recognitions our faculty members have received.

Margarita Nafpaktitis was recognized with the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award Teaching Award in spring 2007.  She will receive a one-semester research leave as a result of that award.

Katia Dianina was one of ten recipients of an ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship awarded by the American Council of Learned Societies in spring 2007 to work on a book dealing with the creation of a sense of national identity in Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century.  She will be on leave during the spring 2008 semester as a result of this fellowship.

Dariusz Tolczyk was invited to present a series of six lectures on Polish émigré culture at the Papal Institute of Christian Culture in Rome in the summer of 2006.

Julian Connolly is slated to assume the Presidency of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society in December 2007.3.  Interdepartmental or Interdisciplinary Initiatives

3.  INTERDEPARTMENTAL OR INTERDISCIPLINARY INITIATIVES

Every member of the Slavic Department faculty is deeply involved in interdepartmental activities.  One of the undergraduate major tracks and one of the M.A. degree tracks are interdisciplinary in design: in addition to a core set of courses taken within the Slavic Department, students must also take classes in related areas in the Departments of History and Politics.  The program in Linguistics also has an interdisciplinary foundation, and two of the Department’s faculty, Mark Elson and Jan Perkowski, make a significant contribution there.  In addition, several faculty members are involved in the Comparative Literature program, including advising students majoring in Comparative Literature on research papers.  Finally, as several faculty members in the Slavic Department have interests in Russian and East European film, we are committed to taking part in the burgeoning Media Studies program.

The following are specific initiatives that are either ongoing or reached their completion points in 2006–2007:

Dariusz Tolcyk and Margarita Nafpaktitis worked with faculty members from other departments to organize a Polish Studies Speakers Series during the 2006–2007 academic year.  Speakers included Adam Michnik (editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza), Elizabeth Dunn, and Zdzislaw Krasnodebski.Margarita Nafpaktitis worked with Kelly Miller and members of the University Library staff to assemble and curate a marvelous exhibit in the Harrison Institute / Small Special Collections Library entitled “The Firebird and the Factory: The Modern Russian Children’s Book” early in 2007.  The Slavic Department contributed financial support to the publication of a fine catalogue on the exhibit.

Mark Elson continues to work with John Knight (in Computer Engineering) and others in an investigation of the role of language and cognitive linguistics in the development of high confidence software.

4.  INITIATIVES RELATED TO VIRGINIA 2020 AREAS OF EMPHASIS

By its very nature, the Slavic Department and its faculty are deeply involved in activities that have an international focus or dimension, from research in foreign languages and cultures to participation in international conferences and cooperation with colleagues in Europe and Asia.  To mention just a few of these: a paper that Julian Connolly delivered in Japan in 2005 recently appeared in a volume of essays published in Japan; Dariusz Tolczyk gave a series of six lectures at the Papal Institute of Christian Culture in Rome in the summer of 2006; Julian Connolly will deliver a paper at the International Dostoevsky Symposium to be held in Budapest, Hungary in July; and Katia Dianina will be going to Saratov, Russia to conduct research in archives there. 

Report prepared by Julian Connolly, May 2007.