AZ-AATSEEL 2025 Conference
University of Arizona: Tucson, Arizona
The Arizona Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages presents the 2025 Annual Conference
Join scholars for engaging presentations on new research in the field of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
This year’s conference is hosted by the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies at he University of Arizona, in Collaboration with Arizona State University’s Russian Program and the Melikian Center.
Audio/visual technology will be available. The conference will be held at the University of Arizona on Friday, March 28 2025 (virtual session) and on Saturday, March 29, 2025(in-person) and is open to the public.
March 28 (virtual session) and March 29 (in-person)
Sponsored by the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, University of Arizona
In collaboration with the Russian Program & the Melikian Center, Arizona State University
All times are listed in local AZ (MST)
Friday, March 28
3-4:30 Virtual Panel on Zoom: Perspectives on Russian Language Teaching (Part I)
Email Dr. Colleen Lucey (luceyc@arizona.edu) to register and attend the virtual session.
Chair: Dr. Veronika Williams (vaw@arizona.edu)
• Emil Asanov (easanov@fsu.edu), Florida State University, “Native-speakerism: How an institutional ideology manifests itself as an instructor internalized construct in Russian Studies”
• Aselle Almuratova (almuratova@wisc.edu), University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Teaching the Russian language through the Decolonial Lens”
• Alla Savelieva (alsa5009@colorado.edu), University of Colorado, “Classroom Materials in Russian Language Teaching: Fostering Diversity and Accessibility”
Saturday, March 29, 2025
In-Person
Location: Environment and Natural Resources 2 Building (ENR2) – Room S225
Address: 1064 E Lowell St, Tucson, AZ 85719
8:30-9:00 Welcome & Light Refreshments
9:00-10:15 Panel 1: 19th-Century Russophone Literature and Culture
Chair: Prof. Suzanne Thompson (seanes@arizona.edu)
• Colleen Lucey (luceyc@arizona.edu), “The Nigilistka in Russophone Fiction of the 1860s”
• Tatiana Ulanova (tatianaulanova@arizona.edu), “Could Prince Myshkin and the Übermensch be Friends?
• Miroslav Seleznev (seleznev@arizona.edu), “Realism and the Condition of Women in 19th Century Russia: Female Characters in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Khvoshchinskaya’s Boarding-School Girl”
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:00 Panel 2: Politics, Identity, and Semiotics
Chair: Dr. Ana Hedberg Olenina (ana.olenina@arizona.edu)
• Sabrina Sulaymonova (ssulaymonova@arizona.edu), “A Close-to-Home Account of Life in Soviet Central Asia”
• Sterling West (sterlingw@arizona.edu), “Atomized Tears: Collective Memory of Chernobyl and Hiroshima”
• Emil Volek (emil.volek@asu.edu) “The Prague School Yesterday and Tomorrow: The Question of ‘Structuralism’ and Semiotics”
12-1 Lunch
(meeting for ASU and UA faculty-light lunch provided for meeting attendees)
1:00-1:45 Keynote Address
Dr. Brian Goodman (brian.k.goodman@asu.edu)
“Reading Howl across the Iron Curtain, or Why Our Cold War Ideas About Banned Books May No Longer be Helping”
1:45-2 Break
2-3:00 Panel 3: Perspectives on Russian Language Teaching (Part II)
Chair: Dr. Colleen Lucey (luceyc@arizona.edu)
• Yulia Mikheeva (yuliamik@arizona.edu) “Teaching Russian with Virtual Field Experiences (VFEs)
• Naomi Caffee (caffee@reed.edu) and Rossina Soyan (rsoyan@asu.edu) “Indigenous Literatures in Russian Language Instruction”
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-4:45 Panel 4: (Re)Discovering Film: Cinema in Ukraine and Russia
Chair: Dr. Anastasia Gordienko (gordienko@arizona.edu)
• Ana Hedberg Olenina (ana.olenina@asu.edu), “From Shadows to Limelight: Rediscovering Ukrainian Film History Today”
• Peter Baedke (gbaedke@asu.edu), “Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12: The Distortion of Law in Modern Russia”
• Rachel Sims (Rachel.sims@phoenixcollege.edu), “Elena and The Arcana of Reproduction: Liberation and Domestic Labor in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Elena”
4:45-5 Closing Remarks