Director’s Letter: Spring 2020

February 2020

 

Dear friends and affiliates of the Jordan Center:

Greetings from the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU!  I hope this finds everyone well, and, for those of you in academia, enjoying the start of the spring 2020 semester.  It’s hard to believe we’ve got another US Presidential Election right around the corner, but one thing we know for sure this time that we didn’t know four years ago: this election is certainly going to bring renewed scrutiny to all things Russia.  And for understanding all things Russia, there’s no better place than the Jordan Center!

 

We’ve again had a very busy fall at the Jordan Center.  A few highlights include:

 

As always, you can find video from most events on our website in the Video Archive, as well as write ups of events in the Event Recap section.  Our goal remains for all of the events to be accessible to anyone who is interested in them, regardless of whether they can attend in person and/or are free at the time we are holding it.  As always, we will continue live streaming most events, so please join us virtually when you can!

 

This spring semester promises to be just as busy. Our New York City – Russia Public Policy series, jointly run with the Harriman Institute of Columbia University with financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, returned this January with an event on “Ukraine’s View of Impeachment”.  We will again be hosting the North-East Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (NESEEES) annual conference, which will take place on April 4th, and will also feature a video installation titled “Streaming Nation” from the keynote speaker, Liza Faktor. Our long list of speakers this semester will include, among others, Ainsley Morse of Dartmouth College, Anton Sobolev of Yale University, and Samuel Hirst of Bilkent University. Of course, there will be countless other talks and colloquia, all of which are detailed on our events page on the website.

 

Our blog, All the Russias, continues to feature the work of scholars across a wide range of fields writing about Russia.  This semester the blog will feature posts from the winners of our inaugural Graduate Student Essay Competition on topics ranging from the experience of Tajik migrant workers living with HIV in Russia to how HBO’s “Chernobyl” revived the Cuba-Chernobyl connection. Professor Maya Vinokour, the Blog’s Editor, is always eager for submissions and pitches, and you should reach out to her directly at mvv221@nyu.edu with ideas for submissions. Please note that we are interested in submissions on “all things Russia”, so this request is for pitches from all fields of academic inquiry.

 

This year also marks the end of an era at the Jordan Center, as Professor Jane Burbank is retiring from NYU. Jane has been a tireless supporter of the Center and an important organizer of events and conferences.  We will greatly miss her, although (hopefully!) not too much as we expect to continue to see her around the Jordan Center in the future.

 

Hope everyone has a great semester, and looking forward to seeing all of you at the Jordan Center often! As always, you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  And if you’d like to support the work of the center, please consider making a donation.

 

Sincerely,

Joshua A. Tucker

Director