NEH Summer Institute: America’s Russian-Speaking Immigrants and Refugees

From http://nehsummerinst.columbia.edu

America’s Russian-Speaking Immigrants and Refugees: Twentieth Century Migration and Memory
A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College & University Teachers
Columbia University in the City of New York
Sunday June 9-Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Harriman Institute is pleased to announce the receipt of a prestigious NEH Summer Institute grant for June 2013. Co-Directed by Harriman Research Scholar Edward Kasinec and the Columbia University Libraries’ Robert Davis, and with the leadership of Harriman Director Timothy M. Frye, the Institute will consider the substance of the terms “diaspora,” “transnational,” “accommodation,” and “memory” through the specific prism of the four distinct waves—First (1917-40), Second (1947-55), Third (1967-89), and Fourth (1989 to the present)— of Russian-speaking immigrants to America.

One of the core issues addressed is whether we can create a sophisticated narrative synthesis of the “Russophone Experience” in America, that could be integrated into broader courses on American politics and immigration, sociology, anthropology, and ethnic studies. More than this, can this synthesis be applied to the experience of other immigrant groups?

Institute applicants—current faculty members at U.S. institutions, independent scholars, museum curators, and up to three advanced graduate students—will compete for the twenty-five available Summer Scholar spots.

Over a three-week period, this select group will engage in a lively dialogue with an extraordinary array of upwards of fifty master teachers, scholars, and social services and community representatives of the last three waves of emigration (and with the children of the first).

For full details go to http://nehsummerinst.columbia.edu