The Harbingers of Perestroika: Russian Guitar Poets
Thursday, March 15, 2007, 4:30-6:00pm Rice Faculty Lounge

The Department of Russian Language, Literature and Culture is pleased to announce the 2006-07 Clowes Lecture "The Harbingers of Perestroika: Russian 'Guitar Poets' of the 1960s-1980s" with Vladimir Frumkin. Vladimir Frumkin is a well known musicologist and radio journalist based in Washington, DC. He is editor of a two volume collection of songs by Bulat Okudzhava, one of the most celebrated "guitar poets" of the Soviet-era, and is the author of Bards and Rulers, 2005, as well as various other works on Russian classical and popular music. He taught Russian and Russian literature and was Director of Russian House at Oberlin College from 1974-1988. He worked for Voice of America until 2006.

Marian Schwartz: Translator
Monday, April 16, 2007, 4:30-6:00pm

Marian Schwartz's recent publications include new translations of Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time and Yuri Olesha's Envy. This year, New York Review Books will publish her co-translation, with Richard D. Sylvester, of Nina Berberova's Moura: The Dangerous Life of the Baroness Budberg, and Harcourt will publish her translation of Ruben David Gallego's White on Black, winner of the 2003 Russian Booker Prize. Schwartz has won several translation prizes and was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship in 1988.

Emerging Nations: Identity and Culture in Today's Central Europe
March 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11 2007, King 106/Craig Auditorium

Since 1989, the formerly Communist nations of Central and Eastern Europe have undergone immense social change. The Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Poland have enjoyed successful transitions: each has joined the European Union and avoided major political upheaval. (The 20th-century's legacy of foreign occupations and abrupt shifts in politics certainly aided in the construction of national identities through the cultivation of distinct national cultures.) This course begins with an overview of the region, and considers interactions of society, language, and culture in these small European nations "whose existence," as Milan Kundera has explained, "may be put in question at any moment." The second half of the course will focus on the arts and culture of the Slovak Republic, one of the newest (and for Westerners, least familiar) nations of the region. Lectures and presentations by visiting speakers from Central Europe and North American specialists will help students understand challenges the region currently faces, as well as the evolving role of culture in societies where long-awaited artistic freedoms have been accompanied by economic and political uncertainty.