The Russian Flagship Program at UNC-Chapel Hill is a joint collaboration between the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies (CSEEES). It is one of eight Russian Language Flagship programs in the United States sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP). The Flagship team includes GSLL Professor Stanislav Shvabrin (RFP director), GSLL Teaching Assistant Professor and CSEEES Associate Director Adnan Džumhur (RFP associate director), GSLL Teaching Assistant Professor Meredith Doubleday (RFP assistant director), and Global Studies MA student Kathryn Goodpaster (RFP program assistant). Follow the Russian Flagship Program on social media. Spring term 2022 events included:
April 25: Alyosha Stupin, Putin’s Peter Pen: A Conversation and Virtual Exhibition with Artist Igor Ponochevnyi. Satirical mischief that makes Putin’s henchmen livid. Sponsored by the Russian Flagship Program, the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, and Humanities for the Public Good. This event (link) is part of a speaker series titled “Russia Without Putin: Artistic Resistance to Authoritarianism.”
April 19: Studying Russian to Break the Ice. UNC-CG alumna Lisa Dickey (Russian language and literature, ’88) discussed the importance of language study as a means of facilitating cross-cultural communication — whether in times of peace or in times of strife. Dickey shared how her experiences studying Russian and traveling across Russia prepared her for her writing career and shaped her perspective on the country and its people (link).
March 28: Sanctions and International Crises. Prof. Navin Bapat (Department of Political Science and chair of the Curriculum of Peace, War, and Defense) discussed economic sanctions and their effectiveness in foreign policy (link).
March 21: Navruz. Across the Middle East and Central Asia, communities celebrate the arrival of spring every March. Prof. Eren Tasar (Department of History) led the conversation about this ancient celebration. Sponsored by the UNC Russian Flagship Program and the Central Asian Working Group (link).
March 8: Facul-Tea with Prof. Michele Rivkin-Fish (Department of Anthropology). Prof. Rivkin-Smith discussed her personal experiences in the region and what led her to her current focus on health care in Russia (link).
March 4: Crisis in Ukraine: Context and Consequences. Sponsored by The Russian Flagship Program and UNC’s Women in National Security. UNC-CH political science doctoral candidate Silviya Nitsova provided a brief background on the history of the Russia-Ukraine conflict as well as an analysis of the rapidly developing situation (link).
February 8: The Soviet Olympic Project: Conversation with Prof. Jennifer Parks. UNC-CH graduate alumna Jennifer Parks (Ph.D., 2009) discussed her recent book and research on Olympic sport during the Cold War (link). Jennifer Parks is associate professor of history at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, where she teaches a variety of courses on world, European, and Russian history. Her book, entitled The Olympic Games, Soviet Sports Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape, was published in December 2016 by Lexington Books.