2025 Jordan Center Masters and Undergraduate Research Symposium

The NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia is excited to announce the schedule for our third annual Master’s and Undergraduate Research Symposium! This Spring, we will host 20 undergraduates and 20 master’s for two full days of presentation, discussion, networking, and exploration. This event will feature presentations on a broad array of topics on panels chaired by leading scholars in the field. See the program below!

Non-NYU affiliates must RSVP to attend. This event will not be recorded or streamed on Zoom. See location details below.

PROGRAM

DAY ONE - Friday, March 14

Location: 19 Washington Square North, Second Floor (Events Space)

9:30 - 11:00 AM - Spaces and Experiences of Transformation in Eurasia, from 1927 to Present Day

1. Rebecca Bernstein (MA, Georgetown University) - The (Re)Making of Jewish Spaces in Eastern and Central Europe

2. Valerie Browne (MA, Harvard University) - Accessing National Belonging in Kazakhstan: Russophone Almatyans and the Kazakh language learning movement post-2022

3. Thomas Cline-Fedorus (MA, Carleton University) - From Kyiv with Love: the Push to Legalize Same-Sex Civil Partnerships

4. Ashley Hsu (MA, New York University) - Starry Temple of Socialism: Moscow Planetarium and the Soviet Scientific Enlightenment Project from 1927 to 1994

Chair: Emma Mateo (New York University)

11:30 - 1:00 PM - The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

1. Ela Dubash (Undergraduate, Oberlin College) - Conflict Transformation: the Problems of Gender in Modern Kazakhstan

2. Leigh Ivanova (Undergraduate, Bard College) - Rooskaya Kvirnost': Vocabulary, Political Positioning and Utopian Plans

3. Emma Larson (MA, Columbia University) - Day of Abolition of Kalym, 1924-1932

4. Madeline O’Connor (Undergraduate, Ursinus College) - Utopia as a Beehive: Love of Worker Bees and Alexandra Kollontai

5. Islam Suleimen (Undergraduate, Northwestern University) - Unveiling Gender Dynamics in Early Kazakhstani Cinema: A Feminist Analysis of Kyz-Zhibek

Chair: Marianne Kamp (Indiana University Bloomington)

Keynote & Lunch: 1:00-2:30 PM

Thomas F. Remington is  Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University and Goodrich C. White Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at Emory University.  He is author of a number of books and articles. Among his books are The Returns to Power: A Political Theory of Economic Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2023); Presidential Decrees in Russia: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and The Politics of Inequality in Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2011). His research concerns the political sources of economic inequality in the United States, Russia, China and Germany, as well as issues related to education, skill formation, and workforce development. Currently he is writing a book on the role of competition law in the reconstruction of Germany and the European Union after World War II.

2:30-4:15 PM - Transformations in Geopolitics: Energy, Ideology, and Strategy in Eurasia

1. Sun Boonbhati (Undergraduate, Wesleyan University) - Energy Transition in the Rentier Petrostates of Central Asia and the Caucasus

2. Svitlana Kukharuk (Undergraduate, Bard College) - Philanthropic Efforts in Responding to Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine

3. Kateryna Kvasha (Undergraduate, Georgetown University) - The Economic Impact of Ukrainian Refugees in Poland: Myths vs. Reality

4. Ashleigh McCoy (Undergraduate, United States Air Force Academy) - “Dialogue of Civilizations”: Putin’s Eurasianism and Strategy in the New World Order

5. Christian Milford Ortiz (Undergraduate, University of Miami) - Soviet Impact on the Mexican Communist Movement

6. Bennett Pease (Undergraduate, Tufts University) - De-Stalinization of Soviet Foreign Policy: 'Peaceful Coexistence' and the Twentieth Party Congress

Chair: TBA

4:45-6:00 PM - Experiences Panel

1. Lindsey Cliff (Undergraduate, Tulane University) - Supporting Change or Stifling Voices? Reassessing International Advocacy in the Post-Soviet Space

2. Ryker Preston (Undergraduate, Arizona State University) - Language, Culture, and Lasting Friendships in Kyrgyzstan

3. Nikolai Sundstrom (Undergraduate, University of British Columbia) - Alleviating the Impact of Legal Repression and Censorship with The U.S. Russia Foundation

4. Lora Tseytlin (Undergraduate, Barnard College) - I already speak Russian - why learn Ukrainian?

5. Hleb Vashkevich (Undergraduate, Loyola University) - Democracy in Exile: A Personal Fight for Freedom in Belarus

Chair: Alexandra Shpitalnik (New York University)

DAY TWO - Saturday, March 15

Location: 19 University Place, Room 102 (First Floor Lecture Hall)

9:30 - 11:00 AM - Navigating Contested Identities and Narratives Across Time and Space: From Art History to Political Conspiracy Theories

1. Declynn Brian (Undergraduate, Reed College) - Literature of Assimilation?: Koryo-Saram and Russian identity in the works of Diana Kan

2. Blake Cheater (Undergraduate, United States Air Force Academy) - Words of Division: Nationalism, Identity, and the Politics of Language in the Baltics

3. Paata Kaloiani (Undergraduate, Grinnell College) - The Role of Conspiracy Theories in Populist Politics: A Comparative Study of Georgia and Hungary

4. Weike Li (Undergraduate, University of Pennsylvania) - The Totality of Dichotomies, and Particularities: Aleksandr Laktionov’s 'Into the New Apartment' Through Greenberg, Kandinsky, and Groys

5. Alina Turygina (MA, University of Oregon) - American Short Stories by Russian Emigrants: Loneliness, Longitude and Topoi. Cases of Nina Berberova and Olga Zilberbourg

Chair: Eliot Borenstein (New York University)

11:30 - 1:00 PM - Historical and Contemporary Dimensions of Geopolitics: Exploring Strategic Alliances Across Europe, Asia, and Africa

1. Peter Busscher (MA, Georgetown University) - Russian Responses to the US Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty

2. Hannah Harris (MA, Middlebury Institute of International Studies) - International Scientific Cooperation With Russia and North Korea: A Scientist’s Perspective

3. Derrik Rivet (MA, New York University) - Relations Between Yugoslavia and Uganda 1956-1980

4. Yangjianxin Zhou (MA, University of Chicago) - Centralization of Marginal Theory: The Reason for the Rise of the Concept of Yellow Russia in China

5. Daria Zhukauskaite (MA, Harvard University) - Axis of Pragmatism: The Evolution of Russian-Iranian Relations Through History. Role of Power Balance and Common Adversary

Chair: Bryn Rosenfeld (Cornell University)

1:00-2:30 Lunch & Careers Panel

Rachel Denber is the Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. She specializes in countries of the former Soviet Union. Previously, Denber directed Human Rights Watch's Moscow office and did field research and advocacy in Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. She has authored reports on a wide range of human rights issues throughout the region. Denber earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in international relations and a master's degree in political science from Columbia University, where she studied at the Harriman Institute. She speaks Russian and French.

Brandon Schechter is the author of The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects (Cornell, 2019), which won the American Historical Association’s Paul Birdsall Prize for the most important work published in English on European military or strategic history since 1870. He serves as the Blavatnik Archive’s Historian and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, New York University, NYU-Shanghai, Brown, and UC Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in 2015. Schechter is currently writing a book comparing US Army chaplains and Red Army communist party political workers in the Second World War. He has been a fellow at the Fulbright Institute of International Education, Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Kennan Institute Title VIII the Library of Congress Kluge Center.

Anya Schmemann is managing director of global communications and managing director of the Independent Task Force Program at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. She previously served as assistant dean for communications and outreach at American University’s School of International Service.  At CFR, Schmemann has overseen numerous high-level Task Forces on a range of topics, including outer space, cyber security, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, pandemic preparedness, innovation, the future of work, Arctic strategy, nuclear weapons, climate change, immigration, trade policy, and internet governance—and on U.S. policy toward Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Schmemann previously managed communications at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and administered the Caspian Studies Program there. She coordinated a research project on Russian security issues at the EastWest Institute in New York and was assistant director of CFR’s Center for Preventive Action in New York, focusing on the Balkans and Central Asia. She has written on U.S. policy toward Russia in U.S. News & World Report, the Atlantic, the National Interest, Huffington Post, CNN GPS, and elsewhere.

2:30-3:30 PM - Experiences in the Field

1. Anna Filonenko (MA, New York University) - 24/2: The Making of a Documentary on the Lives of Russian Female Artists in a Time of Political Repressions

2. Avery Monette (MA, Concordia University) - ‘Real Silver, Real Jewish’: Nazi Memorabilia and Jewish Artifacts in Contemporary Poland

3. Anastasiia Pereverten (MA, Harvard University) - Student Advocacy for Ukraine: Insights on U.S. Engagement

4. Jessica Sims (MA, Arizona State University) - Bridging Borders: Fieldwork, Language, and Cultural Exchange in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Chair: Alexandra Shpitalnik (New York University)

4:00-5:30 PM - Storytelling through Lived Space: Exploring Memory and Aesthetic Expression from Soviet Kazakhstan to Contemporary Russia

1. Dana Akhmerova (MA, Dartmouth College) - Between Obedience and Rebellion: Storytelling in Sayin Muratbekov’s novel The Smell of Wormwood

2. Margaret Borozan (MA, Middlebury College) - ‘Черная работа…и…черный хлеб:’ Bread as Material and Metaphor in Konstantin Izmailov’s diary

3. Nessie Kurganova (MA, University of Oregon) - Russia Seen through Photographs, Darkly: A Visual Approach to Teaching Language and Contemporary Culture

4. Maria Livadchenko (MA, New York University) - The Experience of Space in 'Three Sisters': Anti-Aesthetic of Stasis

5. Charles Smith (MA, University of California Berkeley) - Revolutionary Tears: Lament as Form in the Russian and Mexican Cycles of Babel and Campobello

Chair: Rossen Djagalov (New York University)