Congratulations to Morgan Fox, who is graduating in spring semester 2021 with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in East European and Eurasian Studies!

What first piqued you interest in Eastern Europe?

I love to tell the story that I woke up one morning in undergrad and out of nowhere wanted to learn Polish (which I wouldn’t be able to do for another two years because of how my undergrad’s language scheduling worked)! But I think I first really became interested in Eastern Europe in high school, when we were learning about the Russian Revolution and then the Cold War, and I’ve been fascinated with both the area and the history since. The other story I like to tell is that I once read twenty-seven chapters of “Crime and Punishment” in four days when I was a senior in high school, so the fact that that didn’t dissuade me from continuing with my studies probably says something about me.

What became the focus of your studies as you progressed in our GIS program?

I had a couple different focuses. One was improving my Russian, because I had limited formal training in the language prior to starting the program. I also became really interested in Soviet statuary and monuments, and particularly the monument parks that have appeared in a couple different countries in Eastern Europe, and I feel like I have some interesting and unique projects I can continue pursuing after graduation. I was also really fortunate in that I got to take the Slavic Architecture class, which allowed me to completely nerd out over Soviet TV towers, which was definitely something I never thought I would nerd out over.

What are your future plans?

Over summer I’m going to be studying Latvian at the Summer Language Workshop at Indiana University, and then I’m going to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for a joint degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies and Library Sciences. I’m also really excited because I got a GA position as a foreign language cataloguer, so I’m going to be actively using my language skills (probably primarily Russian) and learning library cataloguing procedures.

What, as you exit, was your impression of our GIS program?

I really liked both the flexibility in class offerings, and also how the GIS required an interdisciplinary approach. As someone who has an arts degree, worked in the arts, and now has an advanced arts degree, I can get really stuck in the Arts and Humanities world, so being required to go beyond that was daunting at the beginning, but with all the different class offerings it felt like no matter what I was going to find something that interested me because of how it related to area studies.

Do you have any advice for current/future CSEEES grads?

I’d say definitely explore the whole region of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. Because of my major degree requirements and doing a second GIS I was a little limited in the time I had to take REEE classes, so my research ended up with a heavy focus on Russia, and I would have loved more time to study the south Slavic area/former Yugoslavia or learn more about the Eurasian countries (as I was supposed to go to Kyrgyzstan, but then Covid-19 happened). The interdisciplinary format is very flexible, so take advantage of it!

Just for fun: A random fact about yourself!

Outside of grad school I do aerial silks and trapeze, and I also know how to say that in Russian. Я занимаюсь воздушными полотнами и трапецией!