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Winter traditionally finds students thinking of summer study abroad, which for obvious reasons has become challenging for students of Russia and Russian. Fortunately, Drs. Ingrid Kleespies and Natalia Sletova—have worked hard to set up a four-week program in the beautiful and eminently hospitable Georgian capital of Tbilisi. As the photos and video here suggest, last summer’s participants had a remarkable experience and did so under the guidance of top-notch Russian-language instructors. We look forward to a time when relations between Russia and the U.S. are normalized enough to return to Moscow, but if there’s a silver lining to this terrible war, it has given our students and us further impetus and opportunity to explore the nations and cultures along Russia’s borders that are accessible and often friendly to Russian-language speakers (see profiles of Tovkach and Bogard below for concrete examples).
On the home front, the faculty remains actively engaged in teaching and research. Dr. Kleespies’s “Cold War Culture” and Dr. Rylkova’s “Russian Masterpieces” drew impressive audiences in the fall, providing students with critical context for making sense of today’s conflicts and recognizing cultural creativity that will nevertheless endure. Several of us presented research and enjoyed seeing UF alumni at our annual Slavic Studies conference in Boston in November. (Shout out to Josh Hodil, a history postdoctoral fellow at Pomona College, and Luke Jeske, a history grad student at UNC Chapel Hill.) I’ve given a couple of public radio interviews on Russia-related media events (on the escalation of anti-NATO rhetoric and the arrest by French authorities of “Telegram” CEO and founder, Pavel Durov) and published an article examining the wartime rhetoric of one Russia’s most prominent television-news personalities (“Prime-time Solov’ev: Rhetorical Strategies of a Wartime Propagandist,” Canadian Slavonic Papers).
Meanwhile, our students and alumni continue to excel. Read on for profiles of three of our many outstanding graduates—Grace Tovkach (’23), Eric Nayman (’19), and Hannah Bogard (neé Harris) (’24).
I do hope the new year finds you in a good place. As usual, we’d love to hear back from you—just in general, and more specifically to find out what you’re up to—regardless of whether it has anything to do with Russia or Russian! If you’d like to participate in our alumni profile initiative, please let me know by email at mgorham@ufl.edu. In any case, do drop a line (and follow us on Instagram, @UFRussianStudies)!
Yours truly,
Michael Gorham
Professor, Russian Studies
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
University of Florida
P.O. Box 115565 // Gainesville, FL 32611–5565 // 352-273-3786
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