My summer began with reworking RUS2850 - Other Russias into an 8-week online course. With Dr. Jenny Suchland's blessing, I had the creative freedom to equip students with theories (Foucault was the star of our course) and demonstrate them in the Russian context. We looked at how categories such as religion, gender, and ethnicity, among others, intersect and produce unique lived experiences.

 

An unexpected and exciting addition to the course was brought by one of the students, Kyle Kardotzke, who majors in Animal Bioscience. In Ohio, Kyle lives close to many Erzya, Shoksha, Moksha, Chuvash, and Mari people, Indigenous to Russia's Volga and Ural regions. He was able to interview several community members and ask questions on behalf of his peers. You can read the full interview below.

 

 

July was arguably my richest and most memorable month. Alongside 11 scholars from Italy, Serbia, Spain, and the US, I dove into the world of medieval Slavic manuscripts at the Medieval Slavic Summer Institute hosted by the Hilandar Research Library at OSU. I cannot recommend this program enough! In 4 weeks, I learned so much about everything from paper production and manuscript conservation to methods in manuscript dating. It was sad to let go of my assigned manuscript!

 

[picture caption: Top row left to right: Michelle Verbitskaya, Valentina Viecca, Dr. Bojan Belic, Marta Riparante. Bottom row left to right: Emilia McLennan, Helen Fortescue-Poole, Ljubica Jovanovic, Alexandra Ivanovic, Enrique Fernandez Lopez]

 

 

I was accepted to present a talk titled "Suffixal Competition in Russian Feminitives: A Corpus Study of Online Discourse on Women Doctors" at the Slavic Linguistics Society conference hosted at Seoul National University. 

 

Alas, turbulent weather in Columbus had other plans, and my 16-hour trip to Korea turned into a 26-hour one, making me miss my panel. Still, I had a great time exploring Seoul and Busan.

 

Outside of academic life, I had lots of fun growing tomatoes, knitting, sewing, and listening to audiobooks!