Welcome to HUSI 2008!
A Message from the Director, Dr. Steven Seegel

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute are proud to sponsor the 2008 Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI), the 38th year of the program at the Harvard Summer School. From its inauguration in 1971 by Professor Omeljan Pritsak, one of the co-founders of the Research Institute, HUSI has offered intensive language instruction and cultural events not only for heritage students, but for all who are interested in Ukraine and Ukrainian Studies. Through lectures, roundtable discussions, films, readings, and events at Harvard and in and around Cambridge and Boston, HUSI 2008 participants are able to gain a broad yet critical perspective on current Ukrainian history, culture, and politics.

Intensive Language Study: Our Experience and Dedication

With its experienced Harvard staff, HUSI is the only language program of its kind in North America in which accomplished faculty teach Ukrainian at all levels in an intensive learning environment. Joining us again this year will be Alla Parkhomenko, Yuri Shevchuk, and Volodymyr Dibrova. Fully multilingual, each has over twenty years of combined experience in Ukrainian-English language pedagogy.

• Alla Parkhomenko, who has developed modern approaches of assessment and communicative teaching techniques for the British Council in Kyïv, Ukraine, returns to HUSI to teach Beginning Ukrainian.

• Yuri Shevchuk, Lecturer in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University in New York, will teach Intermediate Ukrainian. Dr. Shevchuk has long been associated with the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. During HUSI 2008, he will also introduce all HUSI students to Ukrainian cinema, past and present.

• Volodymyr Dibrova, Preceptor in Ukrainian at Harvard University’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literature and writer-in-residence at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, teaches Advanced Ukrainian at HUSI. He is an author of creative fiction, translator, and a leading figure in contemporary Ukrainian literature. His most recent Ukrainian novel, Andrew’s Way (Andrijivs’kyi uzviz) won the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year Prize for 2007.

At HUSI, the improvement of basic reading, listening, speaking, and writing ability is always emphasized. Courses combine the challenging experience of intensive language study with sensitivity to the needs of second-language learners at various levels, as determined by an entry-level test. HUSI actively relies on extensive university language resources including a library of recorded material, dozens of video films and programs, access to Ukrainian news and other radio and TV shows, regular language tables, and many other extracurricular activities. Language teaching is proficiency-based and aimed at developing communication skills in a variety of real-life situations. Given our high level of faculty-student interaction and commitment to individualized attention, HUSI students in the past have reported remarkable progress.

Literature, History, and Music: Courses Taught by Leading Scholars

HUSI 2008 features three courses in literature, history, and music, which are taught by leading Ukrainian scholars in their respective academic fields.

• George Grabowicz, the Dmytro Čyževs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard University, and editor-in-chief of Krytyka, will teach “Twentieth-Century Ukrainian Literature: Rethinking the Canon,” which examines how Ukrainian independence and events after the 2004 Orange Revolution have reconfigured the canon of Ukrainian Literature.

• Serhii Plokhii, the Mykhailo S. Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, who joined Harvard University in July 2006, will teach the “History of Ukraine,” an exploration of Ukrainian history and historiography in the broad context of political, social, and cultural changes in Central and Eastern Europe during the last millennium.

• Virko Baley, Distinguished Professor of Music and Composer-in-Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will teach “Toward a History of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian Music.” Professor Baley will look at Ukrainian aesthetic, historical, and sociological developments in a wider European context by surveying the works of leading Ukrainian twentieth-century and contemporary composers.

Because of the intimate setting of the program, our Harvard faculty members are readily available for additional consultation and informal conversation in and out of the classroom.

Easy Access to Harvard Libraries and Collections

HUSI 2008 enables all its students to pursue their own personal learning and professional research goals during their stay at Harvard. Participants in the program are granted access to Widener Library, the largest academic library in the United States. Heritage students, undergraduates, and pre-dissertation graduate students embarking on advanced work are strongly encouraged to apply. All are able to take advantage of Harvard’s many research and instructional facilities, including its museums and archives, and the largest Slavic-language and Ucrainica collections outside of Eastern Europe.

A Vibrant Intellectual and Cultural Scene

A full calendar of special events supplements the academic offerings of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute. Programs have featured lectures and discussions with internationally recognized experts on Ukrainian affairs, diplomats and decision-makers directly involved in Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy, literary readings, theater workshops, screenings of rare Ukrainian films, performances showcasing Ukrainian pop, folk, and classical music, as well as excursions to Greater Boston area attractions.

The HUSI 2008 program will include guest lectures, roundtable discussions with visiting scholars on current events in Ukraine, and cultural presentations such as screenings of Ukrainian films and readings by a number of noted Ukrainian authors.

When students need to break from “serious intellectual play” in Cambridge, they are also able to take the “T” from Harvard Square and experience everything that Boston has to offer.

A Unique Summer Exchange

HUSI 2008 offers a unique blend of language study and exchange through the Harvard Summer School. Each year, around ten to fifteen students in Ukraine are selected to receive scholarships to come to the program at Harvard. Most Ukrainian students who arrive at Harvard are outstanding young professionals and future academics. They meet and network with scholars and the other undergraduate and graduate students who attend the program.

HUSI 2008 is therefore the site for a flourishing cultural exchange, in the heart of Harvard University’s renowned intellectual community. In recent years, students enrolled in HUSI have come to include practitioners in such fields as government service, journalism, and business. Our learning community and environment for informal conversation and international interaction offers constant opportunity for students to build new networks, and to form new intellectual and personal bonds.

Our HUSI Alumni Successes

In its 38-year history, HUSI participants have included undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Since its inception, HUSI has welcomed more than two thousand students from within and beyond the Ukrainian linguistic, cultural, and territorial diaspora.

The program boasts some outstanding alumni including Father Borys Gudziak, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University; Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University; Federigo Argentieri, Professor of History at John Cabot University in Rome who was instrumental in getting Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow published in Italian; Kazuo Nakai, a prominent specialist in Ukrainian studies at the University of Tokyo, Japan; and William Gleason, the first director of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine who is currently working at the US Foreign Service Institute. Kateryna Yushchenko, the First Lady of Ukraine, is also an alumna.

HUSI 2008

Given Ukraine’s changing status in Europe, Russia and across other global horizons after the Orange Revolution of 2004, the critical study of Ukrainian language and literature, Ukraine’s national cultures, and Ukraine’s territorial and historical complexities at a geopolitical crossroads is as important today as ever.

I heartily encourage you to apply to HUSI 2008 at Harvard University, and to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steven Seegel
HUSI Alumnus ‘00