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2025 Midwest Slavic Conference Panel Schedule

2025 Midwest Slavic Conference Panels

Panels subject to change; CSEEES will notify panelists in case of changes. 

All panels will take place in the Blackwell Inn and Conference Center.

Saturday, April 5

8:00-8:30AM - Registration and Coffee

2nd Floor Foyer, Pfahl Hall

8:30-10:15AM - Plenary Panel
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Chair: Dr. Timothy Pogačar (Bowling Green State U., Midwest Slavic Association President)
Participants:

  • Dr. Molly T. Blasing (U. of Kentucky)
  • Dr. Ludmila Isurin (Ohio State U.)
  • Dr. Malkhaz Toria (Ilia State U., Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Davis Center at Harvard U.)

10:15-10:30AM - Coffee Break 

2nd Floor Foyer, Pfahl Hall

10:30AM-12:00PM - Session 1

1.A: Threats to Social Solidarity
Pfahl Hall, Room 102

Panel Chair: Dr. Assel Bitabar (Maqsut Narikbayev U.)
Participants:

  • "Anti-gender Actors and the Building of the Hostile State: A Comparative Analysis of Slovakia and Czechia" by Dr. Alexandria Wilson-McDonald (Otterbein U.)
  • “The National Question following 1917: the case of the Udmurt people” by Andrey Ridling (Ohio State U.)
  • "Ethnic Homophily as a Measure of Acculturation: Online and Offline Friendships of Russians in Kazakhstan" by Yerkebulan Azimkhan (Michigan State U.)
1.B: REEE Think Tank Showcase I 
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Panel Chair: Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "Threads of Folklore: Nastenka and Vasilisa the Beautiful in Dostoevsky's 'White Nights'" by Ricardo Montiel (San Diego State U.)
  • “The Wonder and Curse of Friendship: Choice and Loyalty in Post-Revolutionary Russia” by Anwyn Cook (James Madison U.)
  • "Duty, Privilege, and the Regime: Driving Factors in the Life of Anna Akhmatova" by Lennon Jean Taylor (U. of Georgia)
1.C: Language, Identity, and Cultural Contact in the Balkans: Lessons from Montenegro, Bosnia, and ex-Yugoslavia
Pfahl Hall, Room 230

Panel Chair: Dr. Ljiljana Duraskovic (U. of Pittsburgh)
Participants: 

  • "Montenegro: A Nation and Language Under Siege" by Joseph Horger (U. of Pittsburgh)
  • "Sevdah, Bosnian Identity, and the Present-Day Spirit of the Ottoman Empire" by Cody McSherry (U. of Pittsburgh)
  • "Nothing Should Surprise Us: Yugoslavia's Answer to the Cold War" by Sava Snyder (U. of Pittsburgh)
1.D: Shaping Polish Identity
Pfahl Hall, Room 240

Panel Chair: Dr. Diana Sacilowski (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "'Authenticity and Magic': Hearing Poland in L.U.C.’s 39/89 Zrozumieć Polskę" by Dr. Alena Aniskiewicz (Michigan State U.)
  • "Populism and Culture: Museum Policy Under the Law and Justice Government in Poland" by Luke Bendick (Ohio State U.)
  • "Cold War Studies and the Mystery of the Missing Second World: The Case of Czesław Miłosz" by Dr. Clare Cavanagh (Northwestern U.)
1.E: Utopia and Dystopia in Russian Literature and Beyond
Pfahl Hall, Room 330

Panel Chair: Dr. Alexander Burry (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "What are you, Кысь? The Genre of and the Idea in Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx" by Irina Baskova (Ohio State U.)
  • "The Forgotten Sex: An Analysis of Julia’s Role in 1984" by Sarah Hohman (Ohio State U.)
  • “'Even Lucretius Could Make a Friend of Me': Classical Reception in Gladkov’s Cement (1925)" by Margaret Stafford (Ohio State U.)
1.F: Gendering the History of Modern Eurasia
Pfahl Hall, Room 340

Panel Chair: Dr. Stephen Norris (Miami U.)
Participants:

  • "Feminist Zones of Interaction: Women's Liberation in Estonia, 1887-1918" by Tara Godwin (Ohio State U.)
  • "Wreathing the Revolution: Gendering Socialist Identities in Soviet Latvian Cinema, 1958-1970" by Christopher Leger (Ohio State U.)
  • "Modern Martyr: Memorialization of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in the Russian Federation" by Victoria Paige (Ohio State U.)
  • "The Kolkhoz Rais: Masculinity and Authority in Rural Tajikistan" by Nicholas Seay (Ohio State U.)

12:00-1:30PM - Lunch Break (on your own) 

1:30-3:00PM - Session 2

2.A: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging- Best Practices in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies         
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Panel Chair: Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • “Cultivating Empathy and Inclusion in the SEEES Classroom: A Positive Psychology Approach” by Dr. Kelly Knickmeier Cummings (Howard U.)
  • "The Value of Mentoring Research in Areas Outside of English" by Dr. B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz (Howard U.)
  • "A Critical Romani Studies Perspective to Slavic and East European Studies" by Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang (Ohio State U.)
  • "Teaching Russian as an Act of Resistance" by Dr. Rachel Stauffer (Virginia Tech U.)
2.B: Exploring REEE Careers Beyond Academia (Roundtable)
Pfahl Hall, Room 230

Panel Chair: Dr. Danielle Fosler-Lussier (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • Michelle McKenzie (Riverside Research, Ohio State U.)
  • Elliott Nowacky (Indiana U., Bloomington, U. of Texas, Austin)
  • Elise Stephens (Internews, Middlebury College)
2.C: An Authentic Personal Past 
Pfahl Hall, Room 240

Panel Chair: Dr. Ludmila Isurin (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • “Alcoholic Authenticity? Jews, Burghers, and Competing Privileges in Sixteenth–Century Poland” by Mikol Bailey (U. of Maryland, College Park)
  • "Inscriptions on Bosnia's Medieval Stećci and Mikhail Bakhtin's Notion of Heteroglossia" by Dr. Keith Doubt (Wittenberg U.)
  • "A 'Real' Pain: Exploring Questions of 'Authentic' Engagement with Poland’s Jewish Past" by Dr. Diana Sacilowski (Ohio State U.)
2.D: Ukrainian Identity through Art and Politics
Pfahl Hall, Room 330

Panel Chair: Dr. Marianna Klochko (Ohio State U.)
Participants: 

  • "Ukraine’s 'Invisible Battalion': Gender and Body Politics in the Veteranka Movement" by Dr. Anastassiya Andrianova (North Dakota State U.)
  • "Anti-Colonial Justice and Ukraine’s Postapocalyptic Survival in Olha Matsiupa’s The Fish Road" by Dr. Heather Fielding (U. of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)
  • "Christian and Theatrical Authenticity in Ukrainian Vertep" by Dr. Alisa Ballard Lin (Ohio State U.)
  • "Towards a Multidirectional Memory: How Ukrainian Literature Reflected on the Holocaust in the 1940s–1960s" by Hanna Protasova (Western U.)
2.E: Reexamining Russian Writers: Dostoevsky and Zamyatin                                        
Pfahl Hall, Room 340

Panel Chair: Dr. James McGavran (Kenyon College, Midwest Slavic Association Vice President)
Participants:

  • "Dostoevsky’s 'Dream of a Ridiculous Man' as Proto-Science Fiction" by Dr. Alexander Burry (Ohio State U.)
  • "Perverse Confessions in Poe’s Tales and Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground" by Kelly Gallagher (Ohio State U.)
  • "Religious Temptation in the Guise of “The Green Fairy”: The Garden of Eden and Absinthe in Zamyatin’s We" by Eleanor Grazier (Ohio State U.)

3:00-3:15PM - Coffee Break

2nd Floor Foyer, Pfahl Hall

3:15-4:45PM - Session 3

2025 Midwest Russian, East European and Eurasian (REEE) Undergraduate Digital Poster Forum
Pfahl Hall, 2nd Floor Foyer

Judges: Drs. Molly T. Blasing (U. of Kentucky) and Malkhaz Toria (Ilia State U., Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Davis Center at Harvard U.) 

Poster Presentations:

  • "Do Not be Deceived: The Danger of Bad Faith in 'The Meek One'" by Isabella Marie Folio (Bowling Green State U.)
  • "Expert Designs or Fragile Understanding? The Competence of American Diplomacy and Influence in the Creation of the First Yugoslav State" by Matthew Ployhart (Clemson U.)
  • "Chernobyl Crisis" by Cristina Sirbu (Gustavus Adolphus College)
  • "‘El Menen Jer Kindiktesh’: Mining Nationalism in the Kyrgyz Republic" by Isaac Steinmeyer (The College of Wooster)
3.A: REEE Think Tank Showcase II
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Panel Chair: Dr. Kelly Knickmeier-Cummings (Howard U.)
Participants:

  • "Remedy for The West: Russia's Plan in Africa" by William Ince (U. of Kansas)
  • "Transnational Solidarity Between Latin American Countries: How the Comintern Fostered Interactions Between Leftists in Mexico and Cuba" by Christian Milford Oritz (U. of Miami)
  • "Red Soil: The Environmental and Economic Costs of Soviet Agricultural Policies" by Leah Peterson (Howard U.)
3.B: Authentic Voices in Music and Movement
Pfahl Hall, Room 230

Panel Chair: Dr. Matthew Boyd (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • “Monetochka’s Voice and How It Displays Her Authentic Antiwar Stance” by Dr. Sasha Drozzina (Ohio State U.)
  • "Indie Rock in Exile: the Search for Russian Identity in the Music Videos of Arseny Morozov" by Jay Hadfield (Ohio State U.)
  • "American Dance Festival Brings Modern Dance to Russia through Exchanges of the 1990s" by Dr. Elena Yushkova (U. of Kentucky)
3.C: Innovations and Challenges in Slavic Language Pedagogy (Roundtable)
Pfahl Hall, Room 240

Panel Chair: Dr. Ljiljana Duraskovic (U. of Pittsburgh)
Participants:

  • Dr. Ljiljana Duraskovic (U. of Pittsburgh)
  • Dr. Renatáta Kamenárová (U. of Pittsburgh)
  • Dr. Frane Karabatic (U. of Texas, Austin)
  • Dr. Anna Karpusheva (U. of Pittsburgh)
  • Dr. Kathleen Manukyan (U. of Pittsburgh)
3.D: Identity and Educational Practices in Central and Eastern Europe
Pfahl Hall, Room 330

Panel Chair: Michelle Verbitskaya (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "Alternative Education in the Holocaust: Informal Schooling and Self-Education among Jewish Students in Nazi-Occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania" by Meg Brosneck (Ohio State U.)
  • "Serfs as Intellectuals and Social Critics: Freedom, Education, and Status in Pre-Emancipation Serf Narratives" by Mariana Kellis (U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
  • “Echoes of the Past: Han’s Insights into Polish Authenticity, Identity, and Education” by Aneta Sobieraj-Skorski (Pomeranian School)
3.E: Propaganda in Art, Prose, and Film
Pfahl Hall, Room 340

Panel Chair: Dr. Yana Hashamova (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "'In French, Left-Handed, no Address:' Unspeakable Desire in Seventeen Moments of Spring" by Sophonisba Franecki (Bryn Mawr College)
  • “'What’s the Point of Hauling Stuff Around?': Serhiy Zhadan’s The Orphanage and the 'Post-Soviet Loser'” by Michael Hansen (U. of Wisconsin - Eau Claire)
  • "Grandfathers and Grandsons: Ancestor Motifs in Posters of The Great Patriotic War" by Enes Tastan (Ohio State U.)
  • "Unveiling Zenithism: The Russian Notebook" by Lejla Vesković (Ohio State U.)

Sunday, April 6

8:00-8:30AM - Registration and Breakfast

2nd Floor Foyer, Pfahl Hall

8:30-10:00AM - Session 4

4.A: Layered Narratives in Eastern Europe: Identity, Art, and Religion                                         
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Panel Chair: Dr. Gardner Bovingdon (Indiana U., Bloomington)
Participants:

  • "Authenticity in Satire, Humor, and Hungarian Civil Discourse" by Brittany Jánosi (Indiana U., Bloomington)
  • "Estonia’s Push for Baltic Identity in the Post-Soviet Future" by Ryan McCrea (Indiana U., Bloomington)
  • "Authenticity in Bosnian Jewish Identity at the End of the Twentieth Century" by Sydney Verel (Indiana U., Bloomington)
  • "Finding Authenticity in Ukraine’s Evolving Orthodoxy" by Tabor Walls (Indiana U., Bloomington)
4.B: Undergraduate Research in East European and Eurasian History
Pfahl Hall, Room 230

Panel Chair: Andrey Ridling (Ohio State U.)
Participants: 

  • "Between Slavery and Corvée: Labor Regime in Qing-ruled Xinjiang" by Houye Lyu (U. of Wisconsin – Madison)
  • "The Authentic Lie: Concealment, Survival, and Betrayal in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Landscape" by Anastasija Mladenovska (Miami U.)
  • “Islamic Nationalism vs. Soviet Imperialism in the Basmachi Movement” by William Slabodkin (Ohio State U.)
4.C: (In)Authentic Soviet Experiences
Pfahl Hall, Room 240

Panel Chair: Dr. Dima Arzyutov  (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "Epic Indigenization: Literature and Nation on the Soviet-Finnish Borders under Stalinism" by Dr. Diego Benning Wang (Kean U.)
  • "The Questions of Madness: Expertise, Psychiatric Power, and (In)Authentic Narratives of Punitive Psychiatry in the Soviet Union" by Dr. Garret McDonald (Kenyon College)
4.D: Gender in Film and Memoir
Pfahl Hall, Room 330

Panel Chair: Dr. Jennifer Suchland (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "Unfinished and Insufficient: A Co/Autoethnographic Exploration of Gender Education through Societal 'Norms', and Post-Colonial Impact" by Gunel Alasgarova (Ohio State U.) and Turana Abdullayeva (U. of Sheffield)
  • “Make Azerbaijan Gender Confused Again! Homosociality and Gender Expression in Late Soviet Caucasus and Central Asian Childhood Memoirs” by Dr. Kristen Fort (U. of Michigan)
  • “Representations of Beekeeping, Gender, and Agency in Blerta Basholli’s Hive and Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Honeyland” by Devon Rancourt (Ohio State U.)
  • “Within Tradition and Beyond Tradition: Self-Sufficient, Strong, and Dangerous Women in Animated Films from the Urals (late Soviet Period)” by Aleksandra Shubina (Ohio State U.)
4.E: Slavic-American Cultural Relations
Pfahl Hall, Room 340

Panel Chair: Dr. Angela Brintlinger (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "American Robots in the Age of Renewed Authenticity. 1980s America in Borislav Pekić’s Novel Atlantida" by Enrico Davanzo (U. degli Studi "G. D'Annunzio" Chieti-Pescara)
  • "America for Russian Constructivists: A Study of the Journal SA (1926-30)" by Ga-young Kim (Indiana U., Bloomington)
  • “’I don’t speak Russian, but I know Russian’: Culture, Identity, and Anora” by Sophie Papp (Ohio State U.)
  • "Anthropomorphizing Wealth and Class in Disney’s The Aristocats and V. Bordzilovski and Y. Prytkov’s The Millionaire" by Siobhán Seigne (Ohio State U.)

10:00-10:15AM - Coffee Break

2nd Floor Foyer, Pfahl Hall

10:15-11:45AM - Session 5

5.A: Resisting Hegemony: Authenticity and the Other
Pfahl Hall, Room 202

Panel Chair: Dr. Alexander Burry (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "Nation and 'Non-Nation': Authenticity vs. Russian Propaganda Narrative About Ukraine and Russia in the Context of Russian Schizofascism" by Dr. Joanna Getka (U. of Warsaw)
  • "Playing Circassian: Imitation and Ambivalence in A Hero of Our Time" by Mack Noxon (U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
  • "Role Interchangeability and Moral Ambivalence in Sergei Dovlatov's 'The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard's Story'” by Semen Sinelnikov (U. of Latvia)
  • "Authenticity or Irony: Dostoevsky in Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Non-Political Man" by Dr. Olga V. Solovieva (Nicolaus Copernicus U.)
5.B: Deportation During WWII                                            
Pfahl Hall, Room 230

Panel Chair: Dr. David Hoffmann (Ohio State U.)
Participants:

  • "The Politics and Legacies of Deportation and Resettlement in the Soviet Caucasus: Klukhori District and the Fates of Svan, Kartachai, and Balkar Communities" by Dr. Ian Lanzillotti (Washington & Jefferson College)
  • "For Our Sake or Theirs? Ukrainian Child Abductees under Nazi and Russian Occupation" by Arthur Mengozzi (U. of Michigan)
  • “In Written Witness: Images of World War II’s Eastern Front History through Red Army Diarists’ Words” by Sascha Rohde (Ohio State U.)
5.C: Treacherous Waters: Politics and Diplomacy                                   
Pfahl Hall, Room 240

Panel Chair: Dr. Marko Babić (U. of Warsaw, Ohio State's Spring 2025 Fulbright Slavic Scholar)
Participants:

  • “Multivectoral Diplomacy in Acton: Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy Post-February 2022” by Dr. Assel Bitabar (Maqsut Narikbayev U.)
  • "Integration of Migrants from Ukraine into Polish Society: International Law, Opportunities, and Challenges. Authenticity at the Level of Global Phenomenon" by Dr. Pawel Maciag (U. of Warsaw)
  • "More than Mere Complicity: Russian Orthodoxy’s Partnership with Russian State Aggression" by Dr. Jerry Pankhurst (Wittenberg U.)
  • "Coming Undone? A Decade of Eurasian (dis)Integration" by Justin Tomczyk (Stanford U.)
5.D: Authenticity in Translation                                          
Pfahl Hall, Room 330

Panel Chair: Dr. Kathleen Manukyan (U. of Pittsburgh)
Participants:

  • "Troublesome Translations: Subtitling the Subtilties of Formality in Russian Films" by Quinn Cline-Cook (Ohio State U.)
  • “Euripides on the Russian Stage: Silver age Translations and Performances of Hippolytus” by Olivia Kennison (Brown U.)
  • "Original Forms and Authenticity of Personal Names in Translation" by Dr. Timothy Pogačar (Bowling Green State U., Midwest Slavic Association President)
  • Untitled by Bita Takrimi (Northwestern U.)
5.E: Phonological, Lexical, and Cultural Transformations     
Pfahl Hall, Room 340

Panel Chair: Dr. Ljiljana Duraskovic (U. of Pittsburgh)
Participants:

  • "The Dialectal Split of Gheg and Tosk Albanian: A Case of Contact-Induced Phonological Change" by Lindon Dedvukaj (Ohio State U.)
  • “On Authenticity in Historical Folk Linguistics: View of the South Slavic Dialect Landscape in Croatian Protestant Corpus” by Dr. Ivana Eterović (U. of Zagreb)
  • "Lexical Similarity and Cultural Authenticity: A Comparative Study of Ukrainian and Russian Noun-Pairs Using Contextualized Word Embeddings" by Dr. Inna Stupak (U. of Tuebingen)