By Noah Amir Arjomand, Postdoctoral Scholar in Global Media, Development, and Democracy Russian artist and disability activist Jerry Mercury goes beyond paying tribute to Malcolm X in “Setting Off with Malcolm”–he personally embodies the civil rights icon’s martyrdom. The 22-minute film consists of Mercury reflecting on how Malcolm inspired him and reading excerpts from his hero’s… Read more »
Film Screening: “VOY”
By Iain Cunningham, Graduate Student, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures It is not often that we are confronted by a genre of film that bears familiarity to us while maintaining its ability to instill contemplation, to appear to us as strange and novel. VOY is certainly such a film. Directed by… Read more »
Reflections on the RSW event “Promoting Inclusion and Appreciating Diversity in Today’s Russia: Global Trends and Local Realities”
By Dafna Rachok, PhD student in Anthropology It is not a secret that concepts travel through time and places and often get vernacularized and reshaped. To find out how the idea of inclusion is understood and employed in contemporary Russia, on April 16th, a panel of experts gathered to tackle the question of diversity and… Read more »
Legal Memos & Social Journalism: IU student & faculty research team supports Russian human rights advocacy organization Moscow Helsinki Group
By Clare Angeroth Franks, REEI alumna Deaths which occur in state custody are a growing crisis in the Russian Federation. While there are no official statistics on deaths in custody in the country, more than one third of deaths associated with law enforcement agencies and the Federal Penitentiary Service (Федеральная служба исполнения наказаний or FSIN) are not adequately explained. Most often, the public only learns that… Read more »
Reflections on the RSW panel, “The State of Human Rights in Russia Today.” Part 2
By Clare Angeroth Franks, REEI alumna This blog post is the second in a two-part series on this event. Part 2: A New Framework for Human Rights On Friday, February 5, 2021 four experts on human rights in Russia gathered to discuss the state of human rights in Russia today as part of the Russian Studies Workshop’s Critical Conversations in Russian Studies series. A recording of… Read more »
Film Screening: “Budynok”
By Iain Cunningham, Graduate Student, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures Russian Studies Workshop screened a film entitled Budynok, or “Building,” in Ukrainian. The directors of the film, Tatjana Kononenko and Matilda Mester, were able to speak with us about the film and answer some of our questions. To call Budynok a… Read more »
Reflections on the RSW Panel, Soviet Foreign Relations and the Late Cold War
By Kirby Fleitz, Undergraduate student at HLS On March 12th at 12 pm the Russian Studies Workshop hosted the second panel in the ongoing series Critical Conversations in Russian Studies. Led by IU professor Michael De Groot, the panel was centered around a discussion of Soviet Foreign Relations and the Late Cold War. The panel… Read more »
Film Screening: Anat Zalmanson Kuznetsov’s “Operation Wedding”
By Iain Viraj Cunningham, Graduate Student, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures Recently, the Russian Studies Workshop screened the 2016 documentary film Operation Wedding, the story of a group of Jewish civilians attempting to leave their city of Riga to find a more accepting life and religious freedom outside of The Soviet… Read more »
Reflections on a talk by Dima Kortukov: “Political Change in Ordered Societies: Elections and the End of the USSR”
Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed: “Contested Narratives and Contested Identities in Today’s Ukraine: Cultural Memory as a Vehicle for Contestations”
By Becky Craft, Graduate Student, Russian & East European Institute and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering On October 29, Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, IU Ph.D student, gave a presentation on contestations in today’s Ukraine. Shpylova-Saeed spoke about the differing forms of contestations and how they are different from conflicts. We often hear about contested identities today,… Read more »