Queer Focus: On Ukraine (Panel 7)

Alex Averbuch, Moderator, Postdoctoral Fellow, Davis Center, Harvard University 

Alex Averbuch is a scholar, poet, and translator. He earned his Ph.D. in Slavic and Jewish studies at the University of Toronto with a dissertation on the history of the genre of solicitory poetry in Ukrainian, Russian, and Hebrew — works composed in these languages, from the early 18th to early 20th centuries, to aesthetically articulate political and economic aspirations, or make requests in poetic form of the Russian imperial or Soviet authorities and/or influential individuals for goods and benefits. Averbuch’s research explores commodity culture, gender and critical race theory, epistolarity, photography, theatricality and performance, translation, and creative writing in foreign language pedagogy. He is the author of three books of poetry and an array of literary translations connecting Hebrew, Ukrainian, Russian, and English.

Vitaly Chernetsky, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Kansas

Vitaly Chernetsky is a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Kansas. A native of Ukraine, he received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007; Ukrainian-language version, 2013) and of articles on modern and contemporary Slavic and East European literatures and cultures where he seeks to highlight cross-regional and cross-disciplinary contexts. Among his research interests are postmodernism, the postcolonial and decolonial discourse, cultural aspects of globalization, questions of identity and community in diasporic contexts, translation studies, and gender and queer studies of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. A book in Ukrainian, Intersections and Breakthroughs: Ukrainian Literature and Cinema between the Global and the Local, is forthcoming from Krytyka. He co-edited a bilingual anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Letters from Ukraine (2016), and an annotated Ukrainian translation of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (2007), and guest-edited a special issue on Ukraine for the film studies e-journal KinoKultura (2009). His translations into English include Yuri Andrukhovych’s novels The Moscoviad (2008) and Twelve Circles (2015) and a volume of his selected poems, Songs for a Dead Rooster (2018, with Ostap Kin), as well as Winter King, a poetry collection by Ostap Slyvynsky (with Iryna Shuvalova, 2023). Translation of Sophia Andrukhovych’s novel Felix Austria is forthcoming in 2024. He is a past president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (2009-2018) and the current first vice president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the U.S. In 2024, Prof. Chernetsky is serving as the President of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

Tamara Hundorova, Professor and Principal Research Scholar, Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Prof. Tamara Hundorova (a.k.a. Gundorova) is Doctor of Science, and Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine. She is the Principal Research Fellow at the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature (Ukraine) and is an Associate Fellow at HURI (USA) and Dean of the Ukrainian Free University (Germany). Currently she is a Visiting Professor at Harvard University and a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University. She is a member of PEN Ukraine. Tamara Hundorova is the author of many books including Lesia Ukrainka. Knyhy Syvilly (2023), The Post-Chornobyl Library. The Ukrainian Postmodernism of the 1990s (2019), Tranzytna kul’tura. Symptomy postkolonial’noi travmy (2013), Kitsch i Literatura. Travestii (2008), Franko i/ne Kameniar (2006); Femina melancholica. Stat' i kul'tura v gendernij utopii Ol'hy Kobylians'koi (2002) and more than 300 articles and chapters on modernism, postmodernism, feminism, postcolonial studies, and history of Ukrainian literature. Prof. Hundorova taught the courses at Princeton and Harvard Universities (USA), Toronto University (Canada), Greifswald University (Germany), Ukrainian Free University (Germany), Kyiv-Mohyla University (Ukraine), Kyiv National University (Ukraine). She is a former Fulbright Scholar (1998, 2009), Visiting scholar of Monash university (Australia, 1991) and a recipient of Yacyk Distinguished Fellowship (2009), Shklar fellowship (HURI, 2001-2002), Foreign visitors fellowship (Hokkaido University, 2004), MUNK School of Global Affair fellowship (University of Toronto, 2017), and Fellowship of Philipp Schwartz-Initiative of Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (University of Giessen).

Dafna Rachok, PhD Candidate, Indiana University Bloomington

Dafna Rachok is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington. Her work sits at the intersection of global health, gender and sexuality studies, and Ukrainian studies. Her most recent chapter “Nudes Buy Army Boots: Agency, Subjectivity, and the Erotic During War” explores the TerOnlyFans movement and how the all-out war in Ukraine reshaped public discussions on gendered subjectivity and nudity. Her other works can be found in Anthropologica and Economic Anthropology. Dafna has an MA in Anthropology from University of Alberta (Canada) and a BA in Cultural Studies from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine).

Sandra Joy Russell, Visiting Lecturer, Gender Studies, Mount Holyoke College

Dr. Sandra Joy Russell is a Visiting Lecturer in Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Trained in Comparative Literature and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, her research examines how the feminist and queer literary and visual cultures of Ukraine enact a politics of care and belonging and engender a powerful anticolonial ethic, and she positions Ukrainian queer and feminist genealogies within broader transnational and anticolonial discourses. Her latest chapter, “’Are These Guys Gay or Merely from Moscow?’: Homonationalism and Martyrology in Ukrainian Literature, 1991-Present," was published in the edited collection Queer Transnationalities. In addition to her research and teaching, Dr. Russell is also the Associate Editor of Apofenie Magazine, and the Editor of Ukraïnica: The Primary Database of Ukrainian Studies—an online catalogue of English Translations of Ukrainian Literature and Film supported by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.