As we navigated the pandemic with health and safety in mind, we were still able to offer a number of events and lectures that we all missed in 2020. Below are some of the highlights of 2021.
2021 Naylor Memorial Lecture
The 2021 Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture took place on April 2, 2021 via Zoom, our first virtual talk since the beginning of the pandemic. Dr. Mark Janse (Ghent University) presented "Cappadocian (Asia Minor Greek): The Life and Times of a Language Once Believed Extinct".
Mark Janse is BOF-ZAP Research Professor in Ancient & Asia Minor Greek at Ghent University and Associate in Greek Linguistics at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. A specialist in the history of the Greek language from Homer up to the present day, he is the world’s authority on the Cappadocian dialect of Asia Minor.
In his lecture, Dr. Janse discussed the history of Cappadocian Greek, highlighting the intensive language contact between Cappadocian and Turkish during the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922). Numerous Turkish words and grammatical structures entered Cappadocian, making it a textbook example of a ‘mixed’ language, with important implications for genetic linguistics. More recently, after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923-24, Cappadocian speakers rapidly shifted to Greek so that Cappadocian was generally believed to have died out in the 1970s. However, in 2005 Dr. Janse, working with Dimitris Papazachariou (University of Patras), discovered in Greece native speakers of Misiotika, a Cappadocian dialect. Dr. Janse concluded his lecture with a discussion of the revaluation and revitalization of the language in recent years.
Cosmonautics Day
April 12 marked the 60th anniversary of the first spaceflight, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin circled the earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes on Vostok I. This event has incredible historic, cultural and scientific meaning, affecting our vision of the cosmos still to this day.
Attendees heard from Prof. Philip Gleissner (SEELC), Dr. Epp Annus (SEELC), Dr. Andrei Cretu (SEELC) and MFA candidate Morgan Fox (English) as they addressed the significance of humankind’s first spaceflight.
2021 Oulanoff Memorial Lecture
The 2021 Oulanoff Memorial Lecture marked our first in-person academic event since the beginning of the pandemic. Dr. Gabriella Safran (Stanford University) presented "Dictionaries and Birds’ Nests in 19th-century Russia". An abstract of Dr. Safran’s talk can be found below.
The great 19th-century Russian lexicographer Vladimir Dahl invented the term “nests” for his dictionary entries. In using it, I argue, he claimed that he and his dictionary were authentic and “Russian,” not arbitrarily systematic and “German”; he hinted at the ways that his project was not just about language but also about paper production and use; and he demonstrated the persistent appeal of avian vocabulary for discussions of the reproduction and transmission of sounds. This talk tells the story of a colorful and adventurous dictionary-maker; at the same time, it shows that ideas, identities, art, and the available media technology were inextricably connected in the past as they are today.
It was great to be back and finally hear lectures in person!
Dostoevsky’s 200th Bicentennial Lecture
On November 5, Dr. Caryl Emerson (Princeton University) presented "Dostoevsky between theory and practice, fantasy and terror". It was such a wonderful time to welcome Dr. Emerson to campus and celebrate such an important occasion in our field. An abstract of Dr. Emerson’s talk can be found below.
World-class writers date in different ways, and to different depths. Dostoevsky’s bicentennial gives us the chance to ponder his continuing extraordinary influence. Did he “predict” our current 21st-century catastrophes, or is he simply such a fabulous thinker and storyteller that we now perceive our catastrophes in Dostoevskian terms? If “applied Tolstoy” gives rise to Gandhi and Martin Luther King—spiritually luminous messengers—then “applied Dostoevsky” has always been darker, less idealistic, less ecumenical, indeed, perhaps even demonic. And yet Dostoevsky is far and away the funnier, more flexible writer, with a comic genius that seems stitched in to his tragic scenarios.
Drawing on the great novels, this talk touches on four interrelated themes. First, what are the advantages and drawbacks of reading a novelist through the lens of a “theory” (in this case, the hyper-famous but much bashed Mikhail Bakhtin)? How have theorists understood the most radiant of Dostoevsky’s heroes, Alyosha Karamazov, and how have the strongest of these theorists shown that “living like Alyosha” is a practical ethical option, even during a catastrophe (or especially during catastrophes)? What are we to do with the hero of The Idiot, Prince Myshkin—that seemingly impractical ethical option—and more generally, what do we do with Dostoevsky’s fantastical, transcendental, ecstatically religious sides in a secular world with agnostic readerships? And lastly: Dostoevsky himself has recently been read, strongly, as a major theorist of terrorism and violence. Perhaps this is his most instructive legacy today?
The intent of this talk is to illustrate how a rising generation of Dostoevsky scholars is pushing back against some of Bakhtin’s now-canonical judgments about this great writer. It will also pay tribute to two recently departed colleagues, Professors Nina Perlina and Robert Bird, who contributed profoundly to our understanding of Dostoevsky’s quest.
Co-sponsored by:
Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, The Ohio State University
Department of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University
Department of English, The Ohio State University
Lecture by Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang (University of Cincinnati)
We were thrilled to welcome Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang, a SEELC alumna, back to Columbus for her talk “Transatlantic Lessons from Roma Rights and Civil Rights: Interest Convergence and Cycles of History”. Thank you for making the trip up I-71 to visit us again Dr. Rucker-Chang! An abstract of her talk can be found below.
In this presentation Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang addressed how Derrek Bell’s concept of “interest convergence” and a recognition of history as cyclical can inform the narratives of both the U.S. civil rights and European Roma rights movements. This diachronic comparison shows that the movements and the primary actors (European Roma and African Americans) share a number of features. Both movements arose during periods when seemingly unshakable ideologies were toppled: Jim Crow in the U.S. and Socialist systems in Eastern Europe. Similarly, both movements spurred significant backlash from majorities, which, in turn, nurtured creative expressions of pride in cultural products and demands for social equality. Dr. Rucker-Chang approached these questions primarily through the lenses of cultural, historical, and legal studies. This interdisciplinary approach illuminates insights not readily apparent. Moreover, the transatlantic comparison provides a broader perspective on the contemporary realities in the U.S. and Europe, particularly in reference to the position of its minority—and specifically “Black” populations.
