Olivia DrakeVictoria Smolkin-Rothrock, assistant professor of history, assistant professor of Russian and Eastern European studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, delivered the Sherman Emerging Scholar Lecture titled "A Sacred Space: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism" Oct. 18 at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Paul Townsend, chairman of the History Department at N.C. Wilmington, said Smolkin-Rothrock was chosen because her work "explored the connections between art, culture and history." A native of Ukraine, Smolkin-Rothrock studied at Sarah Lawrence College and received her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. She has published articles on “scientific atheism” and…
David PesciPriscilla Meyer, professor of Russian language and literatures, was featured on a recent episode of the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR. Meyer discusses the idea doppelgangers and doubles that permeates myth, literature and life. Meyer’s part of the show begins at the 29:20 mark.
Priscilla Meyer, professor of Russian language and literature, is the author of How the Russians Read the French: Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, published in January 2009 by the University of Wisconsin Press. In How the Russians Read the French, Meyer shows how Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Lev Tolstoy engaged with French literature and culture to define their own positions as Russian writers with specifically Russian aesthetics and moral values. Rejecting French sensationalism and what they perceived as a lack of spirituality among Westerners, these three writers created moral and philosophical works of art that answered French decadence and "desacralization" with…
Renowned Russian poet Sergey Gandlevsky presented a poetry reading and memoir during a conference titled "Moscow in Russian Culture" at Russell House during a two-day, interdisciplinary conference held Sept. 19-20. (more…)