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Rethinking Russian Historiography after the Fall of Communism
Nicholas Breyfogle, Department of History The International Sign Performance for American Sign Language (ASL) Literature and Digital Media Production (ASL-DMP): Rob Roy
Brenda Brueggemann, Department of English
Bobbi Bedinghaus, Department of English Fishes of the Amazon and their Environment: Facing New Challenges
Konrad Dabrowski, School of Natural Resources Climate Change, Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration, and the Sustainable Management of Soil and Water Resources in Central Asia
Rattan Lal, School of Natural Resources
David Hansen, School of Natural Resources A Life Free of Violence: Ending Gender Violence and Increasing Health Security as Development Goals
Cathy Rakowski, OSU Women in Development Translating Eastern Europe: Art Politics, and Identity in Translated Literature
Halina Stephan, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures
Brian Baer, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Kent State University International Critical Theories of Trauma: Institutional Practices and Theoretical Reflections
Maurice Stevens, Department of Comparative Studies The Digital Diaspora: New Assistive Technologies in the Performing Arts
Norah Zuniga Shaw, Department of Dance
RETHINKING RUSSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY AFTER THE FALL OF COMMUNISMPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Nicholas Breyfogle, Department of History
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
The collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in a new and dramatically different period in the study of Russian history in American universities. Archives once closed to scholars from the capitalist enemy have been opened and their dusty, hidden contents are now generally available for historians around the world to explore. American historians have begun a very productive scholarly dialogue with their Russian counterparts in ways that were all but impossible in the days of the Cold War. Russian history is increasingly "normalized" in comparison to other parts of Europerather than the ugly duckling who never seemed to get it right, Russia is now seen as very much at the heart of most of the transformations of modem Europe. New topics have grabbed the historical community's collective imagination-such as Russia's multiethnic empire, “everyday Stalinism,” and religion and spirituality. The study of Russia before 1700 is increasingly (and tragically) disappearing from our universities because of dwindling funding and interest. Yet, for all these seismic changes in the way that American historians research and write about Russian history, the question remains: what is rally new about this new historiography? How has our fundamental vision of Russian history changed (or has it)? In what ways are we still tethered to and restricted by the ideas and approaches that so dominated western scholarship in the years before 1991? How have new approaches and new paradigms within the historical community affected broader understandings of Russia in American society and especially among American foreign policy-makers? This conference seeks to grapple with these questions in an effort to take stock of what exactly we have achieved over these years, what new or old paradigms continue to guide (or blinder) our thinking, and what directions we might want to strike out on next. While there have been some published efforts to engage with these questions (particularly around 2001 to mark the decade anniversary), none has done so systematically or, most importantly, with an eye to using the gained insight about our historiographical practices in order to guide us on new research paths. In its effort to explore the parameters of our understandings of Russia and its past, this conference and ensuing publications are targeted at Russian and Eurasian historians both in the United State and around the world, and at American policymakers concerned with the former Soviet Union. In making us conscious of the trends in the historiography, even as the new history is being written, this conference hopes to have an impact on the field of Russian studies broadly by defining the terms of our current debates and setting down new directions for future study.
PROJECT TIMELINE: March 4-5, 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
Center for Slavic and East European Studies THE INTERNATIONAL SIGN PERFORMANCE FOR AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE (ASL) LITERATURE AND DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTION (ASL-DMP): ROB ROY
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Brenda Brueggemann, Department of English
Bobbi Bedinghaus, Department of English
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
This performance will be an integral factor of The BETHA Institute for ASL Literature and Digital Media Production. This production will be an interdisciplinary collaboration between The Ohio State University Colleges of Education, Humanities, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. This institute will bring together three ASL scholars, three ASL artists, and three digital media specialists representing three universities or deaf community sites. The goal of the ASL-DMP project will be threefold: 1) to create a web-magazine to disseminate SLl literature, 2) to mentor students in the deaf community or who are interested in ASL teaching or scholarship to assume leadership roles in the production of such magazines, and 3) to produce a "how-to" guide for the public on how to create such a project and publish ASL literature of their own. Unfortunately, many American Sign Language programs, including those at universities such as Ohio State, are limited in their ability to promote global communication and exchange of Deaf culture because of their own limited budgets for the creation, production, critical and curricular developments, and ability to train students/faculty to use these new technologies. The deaf/hard of hearing communities across the world have been compartmentalized because of the nature of the language, which as been rooted for thousands of years in the concepts, lexicon, and grammar of individual deaf communities. Even with the increase in media sharin across geographical and culturally boundaries, sign language literature and performance has remained unchanged. Our project will address these restrictions and aim to orient a new generation of ASL users, including not only deaf "native" signers but hearing students who are taking ASL for "foreign" language credits (as students are now at Ohio State), to the greater Deaf-world. Theoretically then, the International Performance for ASL-DMP project will challenge all of us to rethink conventional exchanges of sign literature and performance. More practically, the project will aim to educate students and faculty to communicate with visual, animated, and interactive "literatures" and linguistic forms to increase the exposure of additional sign languages. The International Performance for ASL-DMP will enable students and faculty to exchange sign elements, such as combinations of hand shapes, movement, use of space, facial expression and body language, and identify processes of cohesion between the growing deaf/hard of hearing international community. To accomplish these goals, we need a concentrated and collaborative effort – one that crosses institutional and disciplinary boundaries – and will allow us to do three kinds of connected work: inspire and create new networks of sign literature; further explore sign's linguistic functions and properties through the use of "literary expressions" and digital media; and also broaden the valuable cultural, historical, linguistic, and community-building work that digital media technologies can do at a university like Ohio State.
PROJECT TIMELINE: May 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
College of Education
College of Humanities
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
FISHES OF THE AMAZON AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT: FACING NEW CHALLENGESPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Konrad Dabrowski, School of Natural Resources
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
The Fishes of the Amazon and their Environment: Facing New Challenges project will consist of a series of lectures conducted at The Ohio State University by Dr. Adalberto Luis Val. Dr. Val is currently a professor at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Manaus, Brazil. He is a renowned authority in the field of environmental physiology and biochemistry of fish. Dr. Val authored or co-authored more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. The target audience for Dr. Val’s lecture is undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff from OSU, primarily from the colleges of FAES and Biological Sciences. The teaching and research interests of Dr. Val are very appropriate to the academic and research programs of the School of Natural Resources (SNR). Dr. Val's background and expertise will complement the academic and research objectives of SNR. The School of Natural Resources within the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, is an interdisciplinary program focusing on the science and management of natural resources and the environment in harmony with its human dimensions The School's premise is that the well-being of people and their society is based on maintaining the integrity of the biosphere and its ecosystems with wise use and management of its natural resources. Dr. Val’s program at OSU will consist of several meetings with team leaders and graduate students of research programs. Dr. Val will also give two lectures. These will be: Environmental Adoption o Fish of the Amazon and Fish of the Amazon: Facing New Challenges. Both lectures will be open to the public.
PROJECT TIMELINE: February 23-26, 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
School of Natural Resources
Aquatic Ecology Laboratory
Center for Latin American Studies
CLIMATE CHANGE, TERRESTRIAL CARBON SEQUESTRATION, AND THE SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF SOIL AND WATER RESOURCES IN CENTRAL ASIA
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Rattan Lal, School of Natural Resources
David Hansen, International Programs in Agriculture
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
Climate change has become a major concern of the scientific community and The Ohio State University has made major contributions to the analysis of its trends, possible causes and consequences. We have held several important workshops on the topic during the past four years. Initially directed to global trends, we have initiated regional analyses. In June, we co-sponsored a workshop with the University of Sao Paulo on climate change and the potential for terrestrial carbon sequestration in Latin America. We propose to conduct a similar workshop for Central Asian region which has experienced considerable degradation of its soil and water resources over the past several decades. Under the rule of the former Soviet Union, large irrigation schemes were established in much of the region to augment production of major crops, such as cotton and wheat. Mono crop schemes have created major problems with soil quality and water resources. In the Aral Sea basin, these problems have been exacerbated by the over exploitation of water from the two major rivers that flow into it. After independent nation states were established in the region, there has been little control over the distribution of water for irrigation among them. All nations with access to these waters have used them indiscriminately. As a result, the Aral Sea is rapidly disappearing and many lands are being reduced to semi-desert conditions. A need exists to establish a common policy for use o water resources, policy that spans the various nations involved. A need also exists to identify alternative farming systems that depend less on irrigation and that conserve and restore soil nutrients. This requires new review of successful efforts to accomplish these outcomes, and the analysis of new alternatives. The audience for this workshop will be largely interdisciplinary and heterogeneous. It will include members of the science community that work at university settings as well as at government institutions and multi-national research centers, such as the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the International Center for Improvement of Maize and Wheat (CIMMYT). It will also include project mangers for programs that address the issues raised, as well as policy makers from nations of the region and members of the donor community. They will represent a wide base of disciplines, including experts that deal with soils, water, economic aspects of agriculture and natural resource management, social scientists and public policy experts. The diverse participant mix will enrich workshop outcomes and may result in important new approaches to the mitigation of the problems being discussed.
PROJECT TIMELINE: Spring 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
School of Natural Resources
International Programs in Agriculture
Mershon Center
Middle East Studies Center
Center for Slavic and East European Studies
A LIFE FREE OF VIOLENCE: ENDING GENDER VIOLENCE AND INCREASING HEALTH SECURITY AS DEVELOPMENT GOALSPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Cathy Rakowski, OSU Women in Development
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
This speaker series will focus on the issues of gender violence, sexual rights, and health as a
contemporary health issues. Each currently is a priority for a wide range of organizations, including multilateral development agencies, non-governmental organizations, research institutions, and women’s groups. Health has always been a development issue. Historically, it was identified with basic needs of the very poor and with investment in human capital. Health continues to be an important development issue and has been declared a human right (1999 Human Development Report, pp.1-5). The notion of health as a human right was ratified at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. The series will target the following issues: 1) illness, especially HIV/AIDS, and disability; 2) sexual and reproductive rights; and 3) sexual and domestic violence as health and development problems. Through the focus on Ending Gender Violence and Increasing Health Security as Development Goals, OSU-WID will introduce Ohio State faculty, staff and students (and community groups) to speakers who are engaged in cutting edge theorizing, policymaking, and transnational activist activist initiatives. The project will be joined in this endeavor by partners from The Ohio State and Columbus communities, This speaker series will serve faculty, staff, graduate students and undergraduate students from diverse colleges, offices; and departments and a small number of persons outside of Ohio State. The audience will include those who normally ally attend OSU- WID programs and we will encourage participation by those who are particularly interested in health and sexuality issues but who have not necessarily identified OSU-WID events as relevant to those interests.
PROJECT TIMELINE: Spring 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
OSU Women in Development
Center for Latin American Studies
Center for African Studies
Middle East Studies Center
Center for Slavic and East European Studies
Department of Women’s Studies
College of Nursing
TRANSLATING EASTERN EUROPE: ART, POLITICS, AND IDENTITY IN TRANSLATED LITERATUREPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Halina Stephan, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures
Brian Baer, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Kent State University
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
While university instructors rely heavily on translations to teach about the history, literature, arid culture of Russia and Eastern Europe, the various aesthetic, social and political forces shaping those translations are notoriously understudied. Only recently have scholars begun to subject the politics of translation to systematic investigation. This has involved not only a critical exploration of the power relations that construe translation as a secondary form of writing and consign the translator to the margins of our literary culture, but also a recognition that "translation in its many aspects – from the selection of foreign texts to the implementation of discursive strategies to the reviewing and teaching of translations – wields enormous power in the construction of national identities and hence can play an important geopolitical role" (Venuti 1.993:13). These issues are especially acute in the context of Russia and Eastern Europe, which were dominated for centuries by large, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual empires. This interdisciplinary conference aims to bring literary translators into contact with scholars from a variety of fields, such as linguistics, literary studies, area studies, history, and political science, in order to explore the role translated literature has played and can play in the evolution of literary traditions and national identities in Eastern Europe and Russia. The conference will also examine the influence of translated literature on the ways in which the West has imagined the “other” Europe. The conference is somewhat unique in its blending of historical and literary analysis with discussion of specific cultural and linguistic issues involved in translating Eastern European languages. The conference will open with a workshop for graduate students on the translation of Russian literature, and will end with a reading of translated works by translators of Russian and Eastern European literature. The workshop, which will be co-sponsored by the Northern Ohio Translators Association (NOTA) will be free to graduate students and conference participants. We have arranged for workshop participants to receive continuing education credit from the American Translators Association (ATA). Some of the topics that will be explored during the conference will include: translation and censorship; translation and Cold War politics; translation and exile; Eastern European contributions to translation theory; translation and the construction of national languages and literatures; translating gender, sexual, and ethnic identities; translation as metaphor and/or theme; retranslation, pseudo-translation, meta-translation; translation and film; as well as isolated problems involved with linguistic and cultural transfer.
PROJECT TIMELINE: 30 September – 2 October, 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
Institute of Applied Linguistics, Kent State University
Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures
Center for Slavic and East European Studies INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL THEORIES OF TRAUMA: INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES AND THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS - A SYMPOSIUM
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Maurice Stevens, Department of Comparative Studies
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
This symposium will bring together respected scholars and clinicians from around the world to
critically rethink the notion of trauma and the theoretical conceptions, necessary care, therapies and clinical policies that seek to define and respond to groups of people traditionally understood as the “traumatized.” This symposium offers an interdisciplinary and comparative, cross-cultural and international engagement with “trauma theory.” In addition to the expected areas of critical psychoanalysis, psychology and life sciences, the symposium will bring to OSU scholars representing sociology, anthropology, women's studies, literature, philosophy of science, Germanic studies, architecture, and film studies as well. Even more importantly, this symposium will involve practicing clinicians at every level. Not only will the symposium feature an exciting public Key Note address and response, and focused working session, but it will also include the close discussion of papers submitted by twelve participants that will later be included in an edited volume along with responsive commentary. Panel participants will include: Ileana Rodriguez, Jo Carrillo, Linda James Myers, Ana Del Sarto, David Horn, Tavia Nyong’O, Timothy Choy, Karyn Ball, Wendy Hesford, Miriam Martinez, Ruby Tapia, Mark Katz, Bhaskar Sarkar, Ron Green, Linda Belau, Maurice Stevens, Kate Monico- Klein Judith Mayne and Janet Walker. This project will explore the reasons for and ramifications of the fact that from its inception, the notion of trauma has been thoroughly marked by culturally specific ideologies of race, sex, gender, class and religion. In its endeavor to articulate a space for ‘international critical trauma theory,’ this undertaking will illumine the limits inherent to traditional ideas of trauma. Moreover, participants and attendees will explore the intellectual restrictions and material costs associated with the application of this contested concept. Bringing together scholars and clinicians who usually do not interact, and providing them a venue for critically informed academic engagement, the symposium and its research will initiate an important discussion; one that begins to shape the field of Critical Trauma Theory in both academic and clinical settings. The symposium, the papers it will engage and the working relationships it will develop between researchers and practitioners will lead to the production of a policy paper that clinicians can use to produce concrete change in clinical settings. The edited volume resulting from this work will provide a coherent and wide-ranging critique of and alternatives to dominant ideas and theories of trauma, in and outside of the academy.
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
Kirwan Institute
Clusters of Interdisciplinary Research on International Themes
College of Humanities
The Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities
Department of Comparative Studies
Department of Woman’s Studies
Department of History
THE DIGITAL DIASPORA: NEW ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PERFORMING ARTSPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Norah Zuniga Shaw, Department of Dance
PROJECT ABSTRACT:
This project is a collaborative effort of the Departments of Dance and Theatre, Advanced Computing Center for Art and Design (ACCAD), and Americans with Disabilities Act Ohio (ADA) and will include a panel presentation and workshop/lecture series that will be featured at the 5th Annual Multiple Perspectives on Access Inclusion and Disability Conference 2005. This conference is sponsored by the ADA Coordinator's Office in collaboration with ADA Ohio and is an opportunity to reach a diverse audience interested in every aspect of disability. The "Digital Diaspora" panel will be a unique opportunity for conference attendees to witness and discuss the innovative assistive technologies that have been pioneered at the SMARTlab Centre, which is based at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, The University of the Arts (London). Under the leadership of Dr. Lizbeth Goodman, the SMARTlab has worked in collaboration with engineers, robotics and affective computing experts at the BBC and at Media Lab Europe and UCD(Dublin), and has invented a scaleable modular PLAYbox toolkit for interaction, of special relevance to people with disabilities. The PLAYbox includes motion triggers, and also a unique Haptic Chair (created by collaborator Dr. Brian Duffy) for use in performance. The chair empowers users (with any level of voluntary or involuntary muscle movement) to interact with and control a 3d screen environment. The toolkit is anticipated to have a major impact for artists and citizens with all manner of physical needs who are often unseen and unheard in society. In this presentation, the SMARTLab team will include Irish speakers (whose language has been forcibly removed from some parts of the Irish landscape and thereby its culture) & long-term collaborator James Brosnan (a Dublin-based author and artist with cerebral palsy, who speaks through a text-to-speech synthesizer and also through wheelchair dance). In the future we anticipate that this technology could be implemented in Ohio and put to use in performances, locally and - by telematic link through the PLAYbox - also globally. Parallel to the panel presentation, Dr Goodman and her team of artists and technologists will conduct a creative-technology workshop with the Departments of Dance and Theater, ACCAD, and the wider community- The theme of the workshop/lecture series is the Digital Diaspora: the removal of forms of expression when people are silenced by culture or lack of access to innovative assistive technology for people with special needs. The European team will work with collaborators from OSU and the larger community who represent other parts of the 'digitally silenced' world community - i.e. local people who speak or remember native languages and African languages and dialects, and the deaf/hard of hearing community of Columbus. The workshop will culminate in a performance experiment linking the PLAYbox and the Haptic Chair for presentation of workshop results in 3d, and for testing by users of all ages and ranges of physical ability. Conference participants will be invited to attend this informal showing to witness how the technologies and performance come together in this cross-cultural and differently-abled setting.
PROJECT TIMELINE: April 11 – 13, 2005
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Office of International Affairs
Department of Dance
Department of Theatre
Advanced Computing Center for the Arts & Design |
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