Mark Konecny shares unexpected history of Russian art in America


Mark Konecny

On Sept. 18, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Mark Konecny, Associate Director and Curator of the archives and library of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture, for the first installment of its Colloquium Series. During the event, titled “The Creation of a Market for Russian Art in America,” Konecny talked about his most recent endeavors: an exhibition of Russian artists who participated in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and the establishment of a related digital humanities project.

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Re-Mediating the Archive: Scholars discuss archival revolutions


On April 24th, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, together with the university’s Department of Comparative Literature, the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, the Office of the Dean for Humanities, as well as the Romanian Cultural Institute inNew York, held an all-day symposium entitled “Re-Mediating the Archive: Image, Word, Performance” organized by NYU’s PhD candidate in Comparative Literature Emma Hamilton and Professor of Comparative Literature Cristina Vatulescu. The symposium welcomed seven participants from various fields who, as Vatulescu pointed out in her introduction, were there to address “the coming together of texts, images, and bodies in the archive.” She also added that currently “archival re-mediation is in full swing,” with new scholarship posing the question of the role of media and images in the long textually-dominated archive and attempting to bring other media out of persistent blind spots. She referred to this recent development as a new archival revolution, and invited dialogue with other archival revolutions, such as that prompted by the emergence of film as a medium at the turn of the 20th century and the one following the fall of the Iron Curtain 25 years ago.

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Russell Valentino unravels mystery behind Woman in the Window


Russell Valentino. Image by Ilaria Parogni

On April 3, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Russell Valentino – professor and chair of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University – to speak about his latest monograph The Woman in the Window, published by Ohio University Press in October 2014. Valentino stated that the image of a woman in the window was ubiquitous in the books and films with which he has been working for many years. When writing about this trope, Valentino added, it is hard not to write about male fantasy.

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Thomas Graham: US-Russia relations need new framework


Thomas Graham. Image by Ilaria Parogni

On April 1, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Thomas Graham, managing director at Kissinger Associates, for a lecture titled “Rethinking US-Russian Relations.” During a brief introduction, Jordan Center Director Yanni Kotsonis described Graham, who has previously served as a Special Assistant to the President during the administration of George W. Bush, as “one of the sounder minds when it comes to Russian issues.”

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Irina Sandomirskaja discusses cultural significance of Russian icon in Soviet context


Irina Sandomirskaja by Ilaria Parogni

On March 13, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Irina Sandomirskaja, Professor of Cultural Studies at Södertörn University, to present a paper entitled “Originating in Return: Russian Past, Soviet Legacy, and Critical Cultural Heritage Theory.” After a brief introduction by Professor Anne Lounsbery, chair of the NYU department of Russian and Slavic Studies, Sandomirskaja stated that in the past she has worked extensively on the relationship between image and word; now she has set off to study the object. In particular, she focused her study on the Russian Orthodox icon and its re-appropriation in Soviet cultural politics.

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Day 2 – Two-day workshop starts new conversations on Russia`s Races


David Rainbow. Image by Ilaria Parognii

On February 27, 2015 the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted the second part of its two-day workshop Russia’s Races: Meanings and Practices of Race in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, convened by David Rainbow, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, and co-sponsored by NYU Department of History, Global Research Initiatives (NYU Provost), the Harriman Institute, and the Humanities Initiative (NYU).

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Day 1 – Two-day workshop starts new conversations on Russia`s Races


David Rainbow. Image by Ilaria Parogni

On February 26, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted a two-day workshop on the topic of racial categorizations in Russia. The event, titled Russia’s Races: Meanings and Practices of Race in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and convened by David Rainbow, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, was co-sponsored by NYU Department of History, Global Research Initiatives (NYU Provost), the Harriman Institute and the Humanities Initiative (NYU).

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Douglas Rogers presents original study on Russian oil



On November 14, 2014, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted “Russian Oil from Below,” a talk with Douglas Rogers, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. Rogers presented the findings of his research on the centrality that oil in Russia “has played out on the ground level” throughout its recent history.

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