News & Events

Neither Saints, Nor Prostitutes: The Complexities of Imprisoned Women’s Lives in Stalin’s Gulag
Steven A. Barnes, George Mason University
Friday, April 19, 2019
4:30 pm, Carson L01

Although women constituted a significant portion of the Soviet forced labor concentration camp population in the Stalin era, their lives have rarely been studied. Those who have written about these women’s lives, whether scholars or memoirists, they have typically been portrayed as...

The Russian Department offers the opportunity for comprehensive study of Russian language, literature, culture, and history. Our faculty have a wide variety of interests and areas of expertise – from folklore to the history of human rights in Russia – that they bring to the classroom in small, intensive seminars and large introductory courses for non-majors. Our summer study abroad program is built around homestays but also includes travel to Russia’s medieval cities and thriving centers....

Students in the Creative Writing in Russian course (Russian 71, W19) – Liza Begunova, Amanda Durfee, Eugene Lovejoy, Hallie Sala, and Stephen Sudia – collaboratively wrote a 180-page long epistolary novel entirely in Russian. Each student wrote the letters for one of the characters in the novel and created that character’s backstory, personality, distinctive writing style, and story arc. Other participants in the project included Teaching Assistant Misha Tovmashenko and two college students...

Russian-28 students are working on their "Colors and Cultures" project, grant  received by Professor Alfia Rakova and supported by the Leslie Center for the Humanities ("Labs in the Humanities").

Here is what the students think:
--The Color and Cultures project allowed me to recognize that some very different countries see the same concepts in certain colors. It made me realize that even with our distinct identities, human beings have more similarities than we may think...