AATSEEL Annual AwardsThe AATSEEL Publications Committee is responsible for overseeing the appointment of editors for the AATSEEL Newsletter and Slavic and East European Journal, and also for the award of prizes for publications in the various disciplines participating in AATSEEL. For information on our activities, please follow the appropriate link below:
Nominees for the 2010 AATSEEL book prizes (Nomination will be closed as of 1 May)
Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy (books or other material published in 2007, 2008 and 2009 eligible): Comer, William J. A Day Without Lying (День без вранья) by Viktoria Tokareva. A glossed edition for intermediate-level students of Russian with vocabulary, exercises, and commentaries. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008. Dunn, John and Shamil Khairov. Modern Russian Grammar: A Practical Guide. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Marder, Stephan, ed. A Supplementary Russian-English Dictionary. Second edition. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2007. Merrill, Jason, Julia Mikhailova and Maria Alley. Animation for Russian Conversation. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2009. Rifkin, Benjamin and Olga Kagan (with Anna Yatsenko). Advanced Russian through History. Дела давно минувших дней. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Rosengrant, Sandra Freels. Russian in Use An Interactive Approach to Advanced Communicative Competence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Back to top Best Contribution to Slavic Linguistics (books or other material published in 2008 and 2009 eligible): Babby, Leonard H. The Syntax of Argument Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Gvozdanović, Jadranka. Celtic and Slavic and the Great Migrations: Reconstructing Linguistic Prehistory. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009. Kortlandt, Frederik. Baltica and Balto-Slavica. New York: Rodopi, 2009. Nesset, Tore. Abstract Phonology in a Concrete Model: Cognitive Linguistics and the Morphology-Phonology Interface. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. Olander, Thomas. Balto-Slavic Accentual Mobility. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Pronk, Tijmen. The Slovene Dialect of Egg and Potschach in the Gailtal, Austria. New York: Rodopi, 2009. Rothstein, Robert A. Two Words to the Wise: Reflections on Polish Language, Literature, and Folklore. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008. Šarić, Ljiljana. Spatial Concepts in Slavic. A Cognitive Linguistic Study of Prepositions and Cases. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Yokoyama, Olga T. Russian Peasant Letters: Texts and Contexts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Back to top Best Book in Literary/Cultural Studies (books published in 2008 and 2009 eligible): Anders, Jaroslaw. Between Fire and Sleep: Essays on Modern Polish Poetry and Prose. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Bird, Robert. Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema. London: Reaktion Books, 2008. Bittner, Stephen V. The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Blackwell, Stephen H. The Quill and the Scalpel: Nabokov's Art and the Worlds of Science. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2009. Boele, Otto. Erotic Nihilism in Late Imperial Russia: The Case of Mikhail Artsybashev's Sanin. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Borenstein, Eliot. Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Cavanagh, Clare. Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Condee, Nancy. The Imperial Trace: Recent Russian Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Gross, Irena Grudzinska. Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Harte, Tim. Fast Forward: The Aesthetics and Ideology of Speed in Russian Avant-Garde Culture, 1910-1930. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Himka, John-Paul. Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Hokanson, Katya. Writing at Russia's Border. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Irvine, Jill A. and Lilly, Carol S. Natalija: Life in the Balkan Powder Keg, 1880-1956. New York: Central European University Press, 2008. Kaganovsky, Lilya. How the Soviet Man Was Unmade: Cultural Fantasy and Male Subjectivity under Stalin. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008. Kahn, Andrew. Pushkin's Lyric Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Kalb, Judith E. Russia's Rome: Imperial Visions, Messianic Dreams, 1890–1940. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. LeBlanc, Ronald D. Slavic Sins of the Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetite in Nineteenth-century Russian Fiction. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009. Levitt, Marcus C. Early Modern Russian Letters: Texts and Contexts. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2009. McReynolds, Susan. Redemption and the Merchant God: Dostoevsky's Economy of Salvation and Antisemitism. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2008. Medzhibovskaya, Inessa. Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time: A Biography of a Long Conversion, 1845-1887. New York: Lexington Books, 2008. Meyer, Priscilla. How the Russians Read the French: Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Paces, Cynthia. Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. Papazian, Elizabeth Astrid. Manufacturing Truth: The Documentary Moment in Early Soviet Culture. Dekalb: IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009. Paperno, Irina. Stories of the Soviet Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009. Peeren, Esther. Intersubjectivities and Popular Culture: Bakhtin and Beyond. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan. The Anti-Imperial Choice: The Making of the Ukrainian Jew. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Presto, Jenifer. Beyond the Flesh: Alexander Blok, Zinaida Gippius, and the Symbolist Sublimation of Sex. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Richardson, Tanya. Kaleidoscopic Odessa: History and Place in Contemporary Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Rosenshield, Gary. The Ridiculous Jew: The Exploitation and Transformation of a Stereotype in Gogol, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. Ruttenburg, Nancy. Dostoevsky's Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Ryan, Karen L. Stalin in Russian Satire, 1917-1991. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Salazkin, Masha. In Excess: Sergei Eisenstein's Mexico.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Shapiro, Gavriel. The Sublime Artist's Studio: Nabokov and Painting. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009. Shkandrij, Myroslav. Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Siegelbaum, Lewis H. Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Sobol, Valeria. Febris Erotica: Lovesickness in the Russian Literary Imagination. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2009. Starks, Tricia. The Body Soviet: Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Sutcliffe, Benjamin M. The Prose of Life: Russian Women Writers from Khrushchev to Putin. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Vinitsky, Ilya. Ghostly Paradoxes: Modern Spiritualism and Russian Culture in the Age of Realism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Vinokurov, Val. The Trace of Judaism: Dostoevsky, Babel, Mandelstam, Levinas. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2008. Back to top Best Translation into English (books published in 2008 and 2009 eligible): Andrukhovych, Yuri. The Moscoviad. New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2008. Translated by Vitaly Chernetsky. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Demons. New York: Penguin Books: 2008. Translated by Robert A. Maguire, edited by Ronald Meyer, introduction by Robert L. Belknap. Efron, Ariadna. No Love Without Poetry: The Memoirs of Marina Tsvetaeva's Daughter. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009. Edited and translated from the Russian by Diane Nemec Ignashev. Fanailova, Elena. The Russian Version. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009. Translated by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler. Introduction by Aleksandr Skidan. Four Russian Serf Narratives. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by John MacKay. Galich, Alexander. Dress Rehearsal. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008. Translated and edited by Maria Bloshteyn. Golynko, Dmitry. As It Turned Out. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky. Gorky, Maxim. Gorky's Tolsoy and Other Reminiscences. Key Writings by and about Maxim Gorky. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Translated, edited, and introduced by Donald Fanger. Ilf, Ilya, and Evgeny Petrov. The Little Golden Calf. Montpelier, VT: Russian Life Books, 2009. Translation by Anne O. Fisher. Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch. Divine Sophia: The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009. Including annotated translations by Boris Jakim, Judith Kornblatt, and Laury Magnus. Lipska. Ewa. The New Century: Poems. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009. Translated from the Polish by Robin Davidson and Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska. Prokofiev, Sergey. Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Translated, annotated, and with an introduction by Anthony Phillips. Propp, Vladimir. On the Comic and Laughter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Edited and translated by Jean-Patrick Debbèche and Paul Perron. Saraçini, Valentina. Dreaming Escape. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008. Translated by Erica Weitzman with Rudina Jasini and Flora Ismaili. Stanislavski, Konstantin. An Actor’s Work. New York: Routledge, 2008. A contemporary translation by Jean Benedetti of An Actor Prepares and Building a Character. Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Eugeniusz. Peregrinary. Brookline, MA: Zephyr Press, 2008. Translated from Russian by Bill Johnston. Up the Devil's Back: A Bilingual Anthology of 20th-Century Czech Poetry. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2008. Translated and Edited by Bronislava Volková and Clarice Cloutier. Volynsky, Akim. Ballet's Magic Kingdom: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Translated, edited, and with an introduction and notes by Stanley J. Rabinowitz. Back to top Eligibility requirements and selection procedures for the AATSEEL book prizes: AATSEEL awards prizes to outstanding publications in the fields of 1) language pedagogy, 2) linguistics, 3) literary and/or cultural scholarship, and 4) translations into English. For more on the specific eligibility requirements of the individual prizes, and for recent recipients of the prizes, see below. General eligibility requirements and nomination procedures pertinent to all the prizes include: 1. In order to be eligible for consideration for an AATSEEL Book Award, the author (not the nominator) must be a member of AATSEEL. In the case of books written by more than one author, at least one one of the authors must be a member of AATSEEL. Books by individuals who are not members of AATSEEL (or books written by teams of authors none of whom is a member of AATSEEL) cannot be considered for an AATSEEL book award. 2. Nominated works must be devoted to the languages and the literary/cultural traditions of Eastern Europe (with the exception of East Germany, which is covered by prizes granted in other professional organizations) and the former Soviet Union. 3. For the prizes in linguistics, literary/cultural scholarship and translation, works nominated must have been published within the two preceding calendar years. For the prize in language pedagogy, works nominated must have been published within the three preceding calendar years. 4. The nomination process will normally end on 1 May. Prizes will be announced at the annual meeting of AATSEEL in late December. 5. Both members of AATSEEL and non-members may make nominations for the prizes. 6. In order to make a nomination for one of the prizes, one should send a single copy of the work or materials to be nominated to the chair of the publications committee (see "contact information" below). Specific eligibility guidelines for each prize: Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy: The prize in pedagogy may recognize either language-pedagogical materials or contributions to literature on the theory and practice of language teaching. The former category should be understood broadly to include textbooks, computer software, testing materials, and other instructional tools. Nominated works in the latter category should be single or multi-author books. At the committee's discretion, the prize may in some years be granted not to a single publication, but to the aggregate works of one individual whose publications as a whole have made an outstanding contribution to the field of language pedagogy. Best Contribution to the Study of Slavic Linguistics: Nominated works should be scholarly monographs (including grammars and dictionaries) or articles that treat topics in any field of linguistic inquiry. Typically, translated and edited volumes would not be considered. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship: Nominated works should be scholarly books which treat topics in any field of literary or cultural studies. Normally, this will exclude works of historical scholarship, unless these are devoted to the history of literary or cultural institutions or to interdisciplinary topics uniting history and cultural life. Best Translation into English: Nominees for this prize should be book-length translation of either a literary work or an epiliterary genre (letters, memoirs, essays, etc.). Normally, this will exclude translations of a strictly scholarly character. Back to top An explanation of recent modifications in eligibility and selection procedures for the book prizes The Publications Committee of AATSEEL, with the approval of the Executive Council, has instituted the following changes in the eligibility and selection procedures for the AATSEEL book prizes, which became effective during the 2002 competition. Beginning in the present year, eligibility for the prizes in linguistics, literary/cultural criticism, and translation extends to books published in the preceding two calendar years (2006-2007 in this case), but does not include those published in the current year (2009). For the prize in language pedagogy eligibility extends for the preceding three calendar years (2006-2008, in this case), but not the current year (2009). Rationale: In the past, eligibility for all prizes has extended to books published in a three year period including the year in which the competition takes place (books considered for 2001 prizes were published in 1999, 2000 and 2001). This gave an unfair advantage to books published early in the year, which in effect were eligible for a year longer than books published late in the year. It also made it difficult for jury members to examine some nominated books, which were not available in time for the committee's deliberations. This change addressed these issues. Further, the reduction of the eligibility window from three years to two for all prizes except that for pedagogy reflects the well-established nature of these prizes, which ensures that books are nominated in timely manner. The prize for pedagogy has been implemented more recently than the others, and needs more time to come into its own before a similar reduction in the eligibility window can be instituted. Back to top Recent recipients of the AATSEEL book prizesBook Prize Winners for 2009 Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursać, for: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian. A Textbook With Exercises and Basic Grammar. (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian is an ambitious undertaking that grapples with the enormous challenges Slavists face in organizing study of the languages of the former Yugoslavia. It is the first textbook in the wake of the disintegration of that country to give students the choice to study only one of the three languages, or compare two, or work on all three at once. Even students learning only one of the three languages cannot help but become aware of some of the languages’ similarities and differences, thus gaining access to ethnicities that speak closely related tongues. The text’s structure, which offers parallel linguistic material in all three languages at once (including both Cyrillic and non-Cyrillic Serbian) acknowledges the distinct identity and features of each language, but also permits easy comparison of their norms. The textbook input is available on CD, and the website that accompanies the book offers students links of cultural and linguistic materials in each language. The textbook can serve independent learners as well as those in a traditional classroom, and its welcome publication fills a void in the profession. Best Contribution to Slavic Linguistics Cynthia Vakareliyska, for: The Curzon Bible. Volume 1: An Annotated Edition, Volume 2: A Linguistic and Textual Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Cynthia Vakareliyska’s deeply erudite, careful edition and study of the Curzon Gospel is an outstanding example of how to edit and analyze texts. In our current production-line, impact-factor model of research, it's rare to find work that really focuses on exhaustively exploring a single manuscript to shed light on that manuscript's place in the textual world, although it is precisely this type of textually grounded philological study that is likely to retain its value long after new data and new theories have emerged. This publication combines the best features of several scholarly traditions: a paleographically scrupulous diplomatic edition; the thorough apparatus of a critical edition; meticulous orthographic, linguistic, and codicological analysis; and stimulating discussion of the relationship between this manuscript and others of similar content. As a result, Professor Vakareliyska’s research yields original, important, and provocative evidence in several areas: the fourteenth-century date of the manuscript makes us reappraise what might otherwise have passed for thirteenth-century letterforms; the alternation of minor jus and jat′ weaves a web of interrelated orthographic, phonological, morphological, and grammatical threads; and the constellation of the Curzon, Banica, and Dobrejšo Gospels constitutes the only positively identified family of Middle Bulgarian gospel manuscripts and thus enables us to examine in detail the transmission of information from antigraph to apograph. Professor Vakareliyska’s study is rich in material, in analytical and synthetic conclusions, and in methodological innovation, and stands as an exemplary model for the future publication of medieval Slavic manuscript materials. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Studies Roman Koropeckyj, for: Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008). In this first major English-language study of the life of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s national poet, Roman Koropeckyj provides far more than a simple biography. In impressive detail drawn from his extensive research in Polish materials as well as German, French, Russian, Italian, and English sources, Koropeckyj incisively analyzes the simultaneous development of an extraordinary poetic talent and management of an international celebrity: a displaced Slavic romantic and a political émigré who epitomizes the cult of a national poet. From his early days in the Filaret society of Vilnius to his death in exotic Istanbul in 1855, Mickiewicz was engaged in the production of a Romantic identity linked with that of a semi-mythical Polish nation. As Koropeckyj demonstrates in his sober account, this endeavor was far less self-assured and much more complex than hagiographical accounts of Mickiewicz’s life tend to admit. Koropeckyj’s magisterial Adam Mickiewicz makes a valuable contribution to the history of Polish literature and pan-European Romanticism as well as to the debates over national identity that are still very much alive in post-communist Poland. Best Translation into English Marian Schwartz, for her translation of: Mikhail Bulgakov, White Guard. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), with an introduction by Evgeny Dobrenko. The project makes great demands on the translator not only because Bulgakov is a consummate stylist, but also because reproducing the specifics of the historical situation requires punctilious research, and because the interlarding of Ukrainian, especially in dialogues, must be incorporated. Schwartz conveys the fevered, fragmentary effect of Bulgakov’s Modernist prose, the jumble of voices and associations that mark his first novel. As a freelance translator from Russian into English, Marian Schwartz stands almost alone in the field, translating actively and at a consistently high level for years. She has put forgotten writers like Nina Berberova on the Anglo-American map, introduced contemporary writers (she is currently working on Olga Slavnikova), and done a number of impressive retranslations of the classics. White Guard shows her at the peak of her powers. Book Prize Winners for 2008 Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy Benjamin Rifkin, Shannon Spasova, Viktoria Thorstensson, Nina Familiant, and Dianna Murphy, for: “The RAILS: Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series Project.” Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006. (www.languageinstitute.wisc.edu/rails) RAILS gets advanced web-delivered interactive listening right and serves as an exemplar not only for Russian materials but for web delivery of pedagogical content for all foreign languages. The stellar success of RAILS is owed to harnessing what the web does best: pulling together a set of audio and video materials that is at once • authentic, but part of a defined and succinct topic set • well scaffolded in an interactive environment • usable in the classroom, as add-ons, or by independent • available to all using off-the-shelf technology • extraordinarily modular, both horizontally (across topics) and vertically (activities within each topic) Finally, RAILS not only represents a rich set of modular materials for listening comprehension (expandable into other activities); its by-product was an authoring system made available virtually for the asking. In a field where sixth months is an eternity, RAILS, in it conceptualization and execution, will stand as a model to emulate for years to come. Best Contribution to Slavic Linguistics Neil Bermel, for: Linguistic Authority, Language Ideology, and Metaphor: The Czech Orthography Wars (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007). Within the anthropological and psychological frameworks that have largely shaped the field of linguistics over the past century, spoken language has often been regarded as the primary object of study, and written language as secondary insofar as it is an imperfect representation of speech. Neil Bermel’s Linguistic Authority, Language Ideology, and Metaphor: The Czech Orthographic Wars recognizes the system of norms governing written language as an independently valuable object of study, and his book stands out as a contribution both to the historiography of Czech and, more broadly, to the study of attitudes toward orthography as a branch of socio-linguistics. Dr. Bermel’s research rests on a close reading of primary sources, which he evaluates from the perspective of orthographic reformers, orthographic reforms, and the Czech linguistic and cultural community that must ultimately respond to those reforms, whether through adoption, rejection, or adaptation. While everyone thinks of himself or herself as an expert on spelling, Dr. Bermel demonstrates how proposals for spelling reform and public responses to such proposals may reveal deeply held beliefs about language, and how the fortunes of orthographic proposals and the nature of responses to those proposals may reflect developments elsewhere in society. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Studies John Randolph, for: The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007). In The House in the Garden, John Randolph writes intellectual and cultural history as an experience of family and of place. In this dense, yet clear study, Randolph follows the Bakunin family, men and women, through several generations, placing the history of the family in a thick cultural context that embraces daily life on a country estate, family relations, friendly circles, intellectual culture, and literary writings. Moving through diverse topics, from Russian inheritance laws to Hegelian philosophy to pastoral genres, Randolph remains in control. His skillful use of original archival sources enriches his exploration of cultural and familial history. The House in the Garden integrates sophisticated readings of literary and non-literary texts both skillfully and elegantly, offering unique insights into economic, legal, bureaucratic and other important aspects of early-nineteenth century estate life. Best Translation into English Stephan Pearl, for his translation of: Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov (New York, NY: Bunim and Bannigan, 2006). In Stephen Pearl's vigorous, imaginative, and resourceful rendering, Goncharov's great comic novel Oblomov has at last received the translation it deserves. Pearl sweeps away the cobwebs of nineteenth-century translatorese to reveal the book's full humor and charm. Through careful attention to diction and detail he proves what scholars have been saying for quite some time now, namely, that neither Oblomov nor his creator was a fuddy-duddy. Pearl's flexible and colloquial style—wiithout favoring one side of the Atlantic over the other—gives the book a thoroughly engaging immediacy. His exceptional gift for dialogue highlights the drama of even the smallest interaction. Subsidiary characters are energetically alive; the complexity of Oblomov's emotions is palpable. At once poetic and ironic, the translation itself embodies the tension inherent in Goncharov's depiction of oblomovshchina, both his affection for its powerfully seductive pleasures and his gentle but relentless satire of his hero's parasitism. Although Oblomov has a humanity that needs little in the way of footnoting, anyone curious will find ample orientation in the foreword by Tatyana Tolstaya, the substantial introduction by Galya Diment, and Stephen Pearl's illuminating note on his translation. For the twenty-first century reader, he has breathed new life into a classic. 2007 Awardees: Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy Robert A. DeLossa, R. Robert Koropeckyj, Robert Romanchuk, and Alexandra Isaievych Mason, Rozmovljajmo! (Let's Talk!): A Basic Ukrainian Course with Polylogs, Grammar, and Conversation Lessons (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2005). Rozmovljajmo is a much needed textbook in the dramatically changing landscape of Slavic studies, where a truly diverse expertise of Slavic languages and cultures is in increasing demand. The book covers the basic grammar of Ukrainian and aims to develop all basic language skills. It is a result of years of classroom teaching and is built on a strong foundation in the latest teaching methodologies. Written with a profound knowledge of the recent linguistic development, the textbook represents the dominant conversational standard in post-Soviet Ukraine. Each lesson opens up with situational polylogs and communicative exercises, which are followed by grammatical explanations with practice exercises. The main chapters are supplemented by further dialogs, rozmovnyky, and their English translations. Rozmovljajmo contains impressively rich spoken language input that can be used for conversational as well as structured tasks. Numerous authentic photographs also provide a good sense of today's Ukraine. The book includes an additional section that presents the frequent pitfalls for speakers of Russian, tabular appendices, a glossary, and a detailed index. Rozmovljajmo is an excellent textbook that will be used in colleges and high schools as well as in self-study for many years to come. Best Contribution to Slavic Linguistics Laada Bilaniuk, Contested Tongues: Language Politics and Cultural Correction in Ukraine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). Laada Bilaniuk’s Contested Tongues stands out for its thorough and insightful investigation of the language situation in contemporary Ukraine. Impressively readable and informative, the study is based on extensive fieldwork conducted by the author over an eleven-year period beginning in 1991. Professor Bilaniuk analyzes the social, cultural, political and linguistic differences between Ukrainian, Russian and surzhyk, carefully situating them in the socio-historical context in which they have developed. She devotes careful attention to the role of language attitudes and biases with regard to the current and historical position of Ukrainian, exemplified nicely by a second chapter featuring interviewees’ personal narratives on language embedded in more general oral histories. The book also offers a solid overview of the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language, including the pre-soviet standardization and codification of the language, as well as the anti-communist symbolism the language acquired in the decades following the Bolshevik revolution—a symbolic tension that was only enhanced by the close linguistic affinities between Ukrainian and Russian. Best Book of Slavic Literary/Cultural Criticism: Catherine Ciepiela, The Same Solitude: Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). Catherine Ciepiela’s The Same Solitude has rightly been praised for its “impeccable scholarship, theoretical acumen, and rich, resourceful close readings,” its “degree of insight that borders on the uncanny,” and its “very careful, illuminating, and nuanced analysis.” These readers have recognized the achievement of The Same Solitude, after which no reader will see the poetry of Pasternak and Tsvetaeva as fully separable. Professor Ciepiela tells the story of the poets' connection, which was made all the more passionate by their living in different cities, almost in different worlds. She demonstrates brilliantly how the performance of intense emotion, long recognized as Tsvetaeva’s signature, characterizes Pasternak’s poems and letters to her just as aptly. New readings of individual poems abound in this book, which is written with remarkable elegance and lucidity. The readings draw deftly on rhetorical, psychoanalytical, and feminist theory, always with exemplary clarity. Professor Ciepiela also shows herself to be a splendid translator of these two fantastically difficult poets. The translations as well as the overall argument open this book to readers far beyond specialists in the Silver Age or in Russian poetry. To quote one last review of the book, it is a “remarkable and moving work of criticism and biography,” for which it handsomely wins the AATSEEL Award for the Best Book in Literary and Cultural Scholarship, 2007. Best Translation into English Robert Chandler, for his translation of Hamid Ismailov, The Railway (London: Harvill Secker, 2006). Hamid Ismailov’s multi-voiced, quasi-surreal novel The Railway poses almost every possible challenge to the literary translator, from puns and “talking” names to complex symbolism and detailed depictions of life in a provincial Central Asian town under Soviet rule. In his masterful translation, Robert Chandler deals with every one of these challenges with enormous creativity and panache. Never simplifying Ismailov’s work or losing the particularity of any of its unique narrative voices, Chandler makes the novel accessible to English-language readers, with all its dense word play, wide-ranging cultural allusions, and complex tone, at once profoundly dark and absurdly comical. He also provides a thoughtful and informative preface, copious footnotes, an essential list of characters’ names, and a map of the region. Leading his readers deftly through this remote world, Chandler introduces us to a cast of characters that appear humorously quaint and at the same time thoroughly human in their capacity for cruelty and suffering. 2006 Awardees: Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy Christina E. Kramer, Macedonian = Makedonski jazik: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students, Second edition (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). Christina Kramer’s book Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students is the only textbook of the Macedonian language available for English-speaking learners. This book boasts a complete grammar of the language, with appendices containing grammatical summaries, supplementary readings, answer keys and glossaries. A companion CD offers interactive exercises and multimedia materials for comprehension practice. In addition to the all-skills approach to the language, users are provided essential information about Macedonian culture, history, and literature. Kramer’s book represents years of linguistic research on and personal experience with the Macedonian language, and is presented in a format that has been meticulously edited and beautifully illustrated. Best Book in Slavic Linguistics Alan Timberlake, A Reference Grammar of Russian (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Alan Timberlake’s Reference Grammar of Russian systematically covers all aspects of Russian grammar from the orthography and sound patterns to syntax and word order. The book is thoroughly researched, well written and easy to use, but its most important and far-reaching contribution is in the areas of syntax and word order. Timberlake devotes significant space to these topics, and he supports his conclusions with statistical data from online corpora and the internet. This grammar makes a valuable contribution to the field of Slavic Linguistics and it should be on every Russian teacher’s desk. Best Book of Slavic Literary/Cultural Criticism: Boris Gasparov, Five Operas and a Symphony: Words and Music in Russian Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). Boris Gasparov’s Five Operas and a Symphony is a virtuoso combination of musicology, literary analysis, and cultural history that will appeal to readers coming from any of those fields. Focusing on select masterpieces of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Gasparov carefully shows how these distinctly Russian works draw on and intersect with the Western European tradition. In considering the operas, Gasparov offers strikingly original readings of both the source texts and their subsequent musical transformations. Thus, the chapter on “Ruslan and Liudmila” is not only a subtle interpretation of the way Glinka incorporated elements of Rossini and Mozart, but also a brilliant study of Pushkin’s long poem and its play with folklore. In a fascinating chapter on Chaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” Gasparov shows how the composer read Pushkin’s novel in verse through the prism of a realist novel in the Turgenev mold. The emphasis is not on deformation or misreading, but on a new set of artistic goals and their realization on the musical stage. In the one chapter devoted to a musical work without a text, Shostakovich’s fourth symphony is interpreted as a narrative and placed in the broader context of Stalinist culture (literature, radio, and film). Whether the subject is Glinka, Chaikovsky, Musorgsky, Shostakovich or the Soviet national anthem, readers will be amazed by the depth of Gasparov’s knowledge and provoked by the range of his comparisons. Best Translation into English Michael Henry Heim, for his translation of Kornei Chukovsky, Diary, 1901-1969, ed. Victor Erlich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). This translation represents perhaps the perfect marriage of translator and text: the diaries of one of Russia’s greatest literary translators—among other things—rendered in English by one of America’s most respected translators of Russian literature. Portraying the ups and downs in the personal life of a man with prodigious energy, a forceful personality, a voracious intellectual curiosity, broad circles of friendship, and a gift for telling lively anecdotes, the diaries submerge the reader in the rich flow of history. The translation, which is convincing from start to finish, manages to retain the engaging intimacy of a diary and all the sparkle of Chukovsky’s prose. Heim’s renditions of poetry, especially of Chukovsky’s own poetry for children, are also brilliant. Moreover, the text, which has been very tactfully abridged with the general reader in mind, first by Kornei Chukovsky’s daughter, Lydia, then by Victor Erlich, includes first rate scholarly apparats(useful and convenient footnotes by Chukovskaya, Erlich, and Heim; a helpful list of periodicals, acronyms, etc.; biographical references; a full index). Everything you might need to look up is there. This masterful translation of Chukovsky’s diaries offers a uniquely personal look at a complex personality living in a very complicated time. 2005 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2005: Janda, Laura A. and Stephen J. Clancy. The Case Book for Russian. Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica Publishers, 2002. The Case Book (with CD) represents an innovative application of modern linguistic theory to pedagogy. The book identifies patterns of case usage in clearly defined networks, using easy-to-follow terminology. It is unlike any other textbook in its flexibility. Parts of this book can be used in any order to address specific case-related problems. It is applicable in a variety of levels and settings, and can easily combine with other textbooks. Most importantly, the book demonstrates the relevance and usefulness of serious up-to-date linguistics to language teaching. Leighton, Lauren G. Modern Russian Culture: A Course of Ideas and Images, a multimedia course on CD-ROM and Video, DVD Conceptual design and programming by Slava Paperno. Ithaca, NY: Lexicon Bridge Publishers, 2004. Modern Russian Culture represents the culmination of more than three years of intensive work by its author, Lauren G. Leighton. This impressive collection of six DVDs crafts 38 lectures around five classic themes of Russian culture and illustrates them with slides and video covering material from the 18th through the 21st centuries in Russia. More than just a series of lectures on Russian culture, Modern Russian Culture offers a multi-disciplinary wealth of authentic materials, including still photos, music, art, and hypertext to give the teacher and student the chance to explore Russia both in and out of classroom. The additional disc of reference materials can be incorporated into almost any curriculum in need of high-quality sound and image support. It is a tremendous resource for the teaching of Russian language and culture. Best Book in Linguistics 2005: Greenberg, Robert D. Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croat and its Disintegration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Language and Identity in the Balkans presents a compelling narrative, surveying the unique peculiarities of Serbo-Croatian language planning from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present. In contradistinction to the unifying processes that marked the formation of other European national languages, the impulse to create a Serbo-Croatian linguistic and national unity gave way to a continuous dialogue about fragmentation along ethnic and religious lines ending in the breakup of Yugoslavia and the emergence of new national standards - Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. Greenberg's book synthesizes linguistic, legal, historical material and views the interplay among the sides from a non-partisan perspective. The detailed exposition and copious citation of relevant scholarly literature in many languages, together with the eminently readable text providing a masterful summation of a unique constellation of sociolinguistic phenomena, suggest that the book will become a classic reference for those who wish to study the dramatic rise and fall of the language-formerly-known-as-Serbo-Croatian. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2005: Lovell, Stephen. Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710-2000. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. Summerfolk is an outstanding work of architectural, social, and cultural history, based on extensive archival research and interviews, and written in a clear and elegant style. Lovell tells the story of the development of the dacha, from its origins in the 17th century as a gift of land from the state, through its somewhat disreputable image in the later nineteenth century and the Soviet era of privileged settlements for the nomenklatura, ending with the red-brick palaces of post-Soviet Russia. At every step Lovell carefully situates the story of the dacha in its historical and social context. Despite the wealth of detail, the story is told with irresistible narrative drive. Summerfolk will be an indispensable resource for students of Russian architecture, literature, and culture. Summerfolk is a tour de force of synoptic scholarship and it represents cultural studies in its widest breadth. Who would have imagined the dacha was attached to so many architectural shapes, legal definition,demographic shifts, or contrary cultural values? Few of us would have, without Lovell's excellent guidance through the literary, visual, sociological, journalistic, and anthropological sources that so richly illuminate this uniquely Russian (and typically unstable) signifier. Summerfolk is both a history of the dacha and a history of something much larger, Russian culture itself, as reflected in the use of and discourse around the dacha. Best Translation into English 2005: Johnston, Bill. Dreams and Stones, by Magdelena Tulli. Archipelago Books, 2004. In Dreams and Stones, Bill Johnston recreates Magdalena Tulli's lyrical yet labyrinthine prose in his own equally lyrical and labyrinthine yet wholly English style. In this remarkable translation, Johnston conveys a deeply felt sense of Tulli's fantastic organic image and spiraling story of an unnamed city that could be any city, while maintaining both Tulli's original tone and her tongue-in-cheek humor. It is as if translator and author were speaking with one voice. Archipelago Books has produced an elegant edition, aptly choosing Paul Klee's "Luftschloss" for the jacket. This translation will be invaluable in introducing Magdalena Tulli, one of Poland's leading authors, to students of literature in the United States. 2004 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2004: Kagan, Olga, Tatiana Akishina, and Richard Robin. Russian for Russians. Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica, 2002. Russian for Russians fulfills a critical and growing need in the profession to provide language and culture instruction to heritage speakers. Firmly grounded in current pedagogical research, Russian for Russians offers a completely new approach to teaching heritage students, building on their already existing skills, extending them, and adapting them to literary Russian. Films and texts related to various aspects of Russian history and culture are juxtaposed with materials that encourage the students to explore their Russian heritage. This combination of modalities provides a personal motivation for the students, and brings the language to life for them in a unique and effective way. Best Book in Linguistics 2004: Oscar E. Swan, A Grammar of Contemporary Polish. Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica Publishers, 2002. Swan's grammar of Polish is a shining example of what every grammar of a "difficult" language should be -- a masterpiece of conciseness and breadth. It has been suggested that no grammar of any language could ever be "complete," but this book goes a long way toward disproving that statement. Swan's reference grammar is more than a superficial guide to features of Polish, since it explains in extended detail every important aspect of modern Polish. Yet throughout, the text is inviting and accessible, and the author has an uncanny ability to predict and clear up in advance likely areas of confusion. In short, this is the clearest description of the complexities of Polish grammar available. It will be a valuable tool for Polish learners at all levels, language students as well as linguists who depend on the grammars of particular languages to gather data for the cross-linguistic analyses of specific phenomena. It is the "answer book" for modern Polish grammar. It is moreover evident that this book was a monumental labor of love and we can only hope that Slavica Publishers will publish other grammars of Slavic and Baltic languages that come up to Swan's standards. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2004: Michael S. Gorham, Speaking in Soviet Tongues: Language Culture and the Politics of Voice in Revolutionary Russia. DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003. Gorham's study explores the process by which the authoritative Party-State voice of Stalinism was formed from a multitude of "Soviet tongues" in the early 1920s. The author undertakes a study of the institutional forces behind these linguistic changes, offers detailed analyses of critical debates over newly emerging revolutionary discourse, and demonstrates how the Soviet vox populi found its way into works of literary fiction. Tracing the transformation of these various "tongues" from oral modes of communication to institutionalized forms of "proletarian language," this brilliant study shows how such new linguistic practices contributed to the formation the new Soviet citizen. Gorham's innovative book highlights the anomaly of Soviet fiction: the fact that the language and the literary works written in this language were created simultaneously. In a truly interdisciplinary approach to his topic, he finds support for his arguments in works of journalism, pedagogy manuals, linguistic debates, and works of fiction. Gorham provides a comprehensive analysis of Lingua Sovietae from its formation to its canonization as the official discourse of Soviet culture. This outstanding book brings the study of linguistic practices back into the realm of literary and cultural studies and provides new venues for future scholarship. Best Translation into English 2004: Robert and Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson, with Jane Chamberlain, Olga Kouznetsova and Eric Naiman. Soul, by Andrei Platonov. London: The Harvill Press, 2003. The Harvill Press translation of Platonov's Soul -- a collaborative effort -- accomplishes the seemingly impossible in bringing the notoriously idiosyncratic language of this talented writer to English-language readers. The superb yet compact apparatus includes an essay on "Platonov and Central Asia," an introduction explicitly treating the challenges of translating Platonov, a map, a pronunciation and meaning guide to names, and endnotes. This translation and accompanying material will be invaluable in bringing Platonov into the English-language classroom and making his work accessible to our students. 2003 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2003: Boyle, Eloise M. and Genevra Gerhart, eds., The Russian Context: The Culture behind the Language. Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica, 2002. Innovative and full of valuable information, this book has major implications for a restructuring of Russian language/culture/literature curricula, as it provides instructors for the first time with a compact, structured view of what Russians consider part of their general background. The authors present an interdisciplinary overview of historical and contemporary Russian culture, and focus on the reflection of culture in language. The accompanying CD makes excellent use of technology to provide substantial aural input as well as far more visual input than could possibly have been incorporated in the print volume. This collection of cultural information will be immensely useful in teaching both non-native speakers and heritage learners. Best Book in Linguistics 2003: Collins, Daniel E. Reanimated Voices: Speech Reporting in a Historical-Pragmatic Perspective. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, vol. 85. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001. Collins's book breaks new ground in Russian philology with its pragmatic and functionalist study of secular Old Russian texts. In a thorough and circumspect examination, Professor Collins reconstructs the discursive choices made in rendering reported speech in texts. The results of his examination deepen our understanding of the construction of Old Russian texts and, by extension, provide fresh insight into the nature of Old Russian speech. Professor Collins's methodological innovations already noted in domestic and international reviews of his work are certain to be influential in steering a course for this new vein of research both in the Slavic and general linguistic fields. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2003: Olcott, Anthony. Russian Pulp: The Detektiv and the Russian Way of Crime. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001. This book--highly readable and witty-- treats key aspects from Soviet and post-Soviet life. Because the detiktiv is close, but not identical to the Anglo-American murder mystery, Olcott is able to offer a nuanced, comparative and interdisciplinary framework for his work. He details Soviet attitudes toward sexuality, crime, law, and something that is far more difficult to pin down: the boundaries between the public and the personal. Olcott shows that attitudes inculcated and developed during the years of Soviet rule have not faded away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. His book makes Russian literature and culture accessible to non-Slavists, explicating how Russian culture is different from Western liberal democracy, and grappling with Russian difference without trying to make that Otherness merely edifying. Best Translation into English 2003: Levine, Madeline G. Milosz's ABC's, by Czeslaw Milosz. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001. This translation represents the achievement of a veteran craftsman instrumental in making contemporary Polish literature accessible to the English-speaking world. A miscellany of highly personal reflections on the relationship between poetry and politics in the twentieth century, Milosz's ABC's encompasses a number of sub-genres under the umbrella of the mock encyclopedia entry. This variety requires the translator to identify and reproduce a great diversity of tone, to which occasion Professor Levine rises again and again. When in "Angelic Sexuality" Milosz wanders into Swedenborgian theosophy, she follows suit with the appropriate philosophical diction and terminology; when in "Arcata" he evokes the beauty of a town on the California coast, she renders it as the prose poem it really is. Everywhere she displays the accuracy and sensitivity we have come to expect of her. 2002 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2002: ACTR. Business Russian (1999). http://www.russnet.org/home.html The Business Russian web site developed under the auspices of Russnet is a well-designed and user-friendly series of business-related modules for novice, intermediate and advanced learners. The modules were based on the textbook Russkyj jazyk v delevom obshchenii by Klobukova, Mikhalkina, Soltanovskaja, and Khavronina (ed. Dan Davidson, Washington, D.C.: ACTR/ACCELS, 1997). The modules themselves are complete, but continue to be enhanced with real-life case studies for users at higher levels of proficiency. The site also contains a video clip from a lecture on how to use the related textbook by one of its authors. The activities in the modules are based on textual, visual and aural prompts which focus on the development of business vocabulary and basic grammar. A preliminary module introduces users to reading and typing the Cyrillic alphabet. A Russian-English dictionary offers translations for select vocabulary words. The site is designed to be used either as part of a class or for individual study.Its online format makes it available to everyone and helps fill a void in Russian programs which do not have the resources to offer courses in Business Russian. At a time when economic and business ties between Russia and the West are on the rise, this site provides a valuable contribution to an important area of Russian language pedagogy. Best Book in Linguistics 2002: Marc L. Greenberg. A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language. Heidelberg, DE: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 2000. Professor Greenberg's monograph, A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Language, is a major contribution to the Carl Winter series in Slavic historical linguistics and an outstanding work of Slavic dialectology. On the basis of new language data and carefully constructed linguistic arguments, it presents a new interpretation of historical language change in Slovene and the development of its complex and diverse variants. The book is noteworthy for the author's command of the material, meticulous analysis, and quality of argumentation. It is a major advance in our understanding of this important, but often neglected, Slavic linguistic area. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2002: Note from the Publications Committee: due to a tie between two very strong nominees, the committee decided to award two prizes in this category this year. Dale E. Peterson. Up from Bondage: The Literatures of Russian and African American Soul. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000. Dale Peterson's book will surprise and delight readers with its elaboration of the provocative parallel trajectories taken by these two literary and philosophical traditions. Peterson traces the comparable quests of Russian and African American writers -- themselves members of the Westernized elites within their respective native cultures -- to convey the nation's "soul," as embodied by the oral culture of the enslaved and illiterate masses, and thereby to assert cultural significance in opposition to the European West's dismissive assessment. Through dazzling juxtapositions of intellectual figures such as Chaadaev and Crummell, Dostoevsky and DuBois, Turgenev and Chestnutt, Gorky and Wright, Rasputin and Naylor, Peterson illuminates the problematic but productive phenomenon of Bakhtinian "double-voicedness" and self conscious hybridity. As Peterson so astutely points out, this very dividedness enabled writers to bridge the cultural divide separating the Russian and African-American indigenous sensibilitiesfrom established Western traditions of art and thought. Peterson's study represents intellectual history at its finest, offering readers a new perspective on canonical figures in Russian and American literary history, and encouraging us to think in broader interdisciplinary terms about our cultural fields of interest. Peterson has made a generous gift to both Russian and African American literary studies in opening this rich field for sustained study, and fellow scholars will surely be inspired by his example to undertake similarly bold synthesizing projects. Gabriella Safran. Rewriting the Jew: Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2000. Rewriting the Jew: Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire is an ambitious contribution to Russian and Jewish cultural and literary studies. Perceived as both intractably alien and potentially open to redefinition--through conversion and/or assimilation,-- the Jewish minority in Russia, Safran persuasively demonstrates, became a focal point for conflicting paradigms of human nature and nationhood in a multi-cultural empire. The "Jewish Question" emerges from Safran's compelling analyses as a challenge to stable notions of identity, which spurred Jewish and gentile writers alike to critical engagement with the aesthetic and ideological assumptions operating at the center of the nineteenth-century tradition. Realism's confidence in the power of literary type and narrative to inspire the composition of real biographies, liberal advocacy of rational self-fashioning and the formation of citizens through the influence of textual models, and an ascendent Romantic belief in a racially immutable self and national allegiance meet and vie over the figure of the Jew. Safran's juxtaposition of Grigory Bogrov, the Russian-speaking Jew whose "Zapiski evreia" introduced the narrative of acculturation to mainstream literature, with the Polish Positivist and nationalist Eliza Orzeszkowa, Leskov, and Chekhov, is a bold gamble which pays off. Rewriting the Jew enriches and reconfigures the map of nineteenth-century culture, shedding new light on both the dominant tradition and Jewish experience. Best Translation into English 2002: Robert Bird, trans., Michael Wachtel, Ed. Selected Essays, by Viacheslav Ivanov. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2001. Robert Bird's and Michael Wachtel's Selected Essays by Viacheslav Ivanov represents the state of the art in both scholarship and translation, and is sure to become the definitive collection of Ivanov's essays in English. The volume contains Ivanov's most important prose works, including many essays appearing in English for the first time. The brilliant translation does justice to the intellectual complexity, the poetic spirit, and the erudition of the seminal thinker of the Russian Symbolist movement. The volume is beautifully edited, with a thorough introduction that establishes Ivanov's place in Russian literary and intellectual history, and a wealth of meticulous annotations. The notes-a work of art in themselves-introduce each individual essay, explain intricacies of language and terminology, show the development of Ivanov's writing, and illuminate the author's many references to philosophy, mythology, religion, and poetry. This marvelous book offers that rarest of combinations: intellectual rigor and perfect pitch. 2001 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2001: Olga Kagan, Benjamin Rifkin and Susan Bauckus, eds. The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures. Bloomington, Ind: Slavica, 2000. Olga Kagan, Benjamin Rifkin and Susan Bauckus's The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures is truly "a volume of breadth and complexity that required the time, energy, and enthusiasm of many people," but most of all--of the editors themselves. With this volume, they have created a bridge reaching back to a similar effort published by colleagues 15 years ago, and reaching forward to the next generation of teachers, to whom they dedicate their book with the hope that they will compile the next such volume. The book gives a broad overview of what is happening in pedagogy and second language acquisition not only in Slavic but also in the field at large, with each section of refereed papers being introduced by a prominent non-Slavist. In addition to the extensive collection of essays, the volume also includes a comprehensive review of textbooks, references and other resources currently available to students and teachers of Slavic languages and cultures. The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures offers a snapshot of the field at the beginning of the 21st century and it will remain an invaluable resource and starting point for further discussion and research in the years to come. Best Book in Linguistics 2001: Sue Brown. Syntax of Negation in Russian: A Minimalist Approach. Stanford, Cal.: Center for the Study of Language and Information, 1999. Sue Brown's monograph, The Syntax of Negation in Russian, is a highly focused discussion of negation and related issues in Russian and is one of the first to treat a syntactic phenomenon completely within a single Slavic language. Its clear introduction to Minimalism, its thorough survey of other approaches, and its analytical strength has led to a renewed interest in the genitive of negation in Russian and the other Slavic languages. For general linguists the value of the work lies in its clear explication of negation in Russian and its contribution of reliable data to the theoretical discussion. For Slavists it serves both as an introduction to a new theoretical approach as well as an accessible demonstration of how Minimalist theory can solve old problems in a new and insightful way. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2001: Eliot Borenstein. Men Without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000. In elegant and lucid prose, Eliot Borenstein's Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929 offers a detailed analysis of the masculinist ethos of Russian revolutionary culture as reflected in the prose fiction of the 1920's. In the wake of the revolution, argues Borenstein, social relations assumed a new vision of comradeliness predicated on male bonding, one that effectively eroded family ties, the worth of heterosexual romance and the exigencies of reproduction. The Soviet "man question" emerged alongside the older "zhenskii vopros" and survived as the phenomenon of "fratriarchal communism" until high Stalinism's discursive return to family values in the 1930's. Since the "man question" was never conceptualized as systematically or consciously by contemporary thinkers as the gender issues raised by Russian feminists, it is to Borenstein's credit that he has been able to tease out the ramifications of what was more a rhetorical and cultural tendency than a fullyfledged theory. This he does not by dissolving literature into culture, but by reading the works of Babel, Olesha, and Platonov as critical engagements in the culture of Boleshvik masculinity, texts that ultimately expose the dystopian consequences of a society from which the feminine has been excluded. Best Translation into English 2001: Daniel Weissbort. Selected Poems of Nikolay Zabolotsky. Manchester: Carcanet, 1999. The Selected Poems of Nikolay Zabolotsky, edited by Daniel Weissbort, is the first representative collection of Zabolotsky's poems in English translation. For this alone, this volume earns accolades, for Zabolotsky is undoubtedly a poet of great significance. The somewhat mystifying absence of any previous systematic attempt to render his poetry into English might be explained by its sheer linguistic complexity in the original, for Zabolotsky was fond of grotesques, intricate and obscure metaphors, and eccentric turns of speech and style. In this light, this volume becomes even more worthy of acclaim. The translations included are primarily the work of Weissbort himself, although there are a few by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi. The volume incorporates poems from every stage of Zabolotsky's career--over eighty shorter lyrics and all four of his long poems. Taking a variety of approaches to translation, ranging from a high degree of formal faithfulness to more semantically precise renderings, the volume as a whole accomplishes the seemingly impossible, delivering a composite image that accurately conveys the overall tone and tenor of Zabolotsky's works to the English reader. 2000 Awardees:Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy 2000: Slava Paperno, for his achievements in computer- and video-assisted language teaching. Over the years Slava has produced many of the truly innovative and imaginative materials in our field. He is one of the Russian instructors in the forefront of using technology as an integral part of teaching, not simply as an add-on feature. We are recognizing him in particular for his achievements in computer-and video-assisted language teaching, with special recognition for his "12 Chairs Interactive" CD-ROM, and the documentaries "Children from Russia," "Michael and Svetlana," "Interviews from Russia," and "Life on the Atomic River." These materials, especially the films, are truly trail-blazing because they successfully combine the authentic and the pedagogically valid. Students watch the films with interest and genuine pleasure without realizing that they are, to some extent, made specifically for teaching language and culture. In a sense, the films can be called a new genre in language teaching: specially created authentic materials. Best Book in Linguistics 2000: Franks, Steven and Tracy Holloway King. A Handbook of Slavic Clitics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 A Handbook of Slavic Clitics by Steven Franks and Tracy Holloway King is a comprehensive reference book as well as an insightful theoretical study. By showing that the clitic systems of a large variety of Slavic languages present intriguing problems for linguistic theory and that theory in turn reveals much about the structure of Slavic languages, it significantly contributes to a dialogue between Slavists and general linguists. Best Book in Literary/Cultural Scholarship 2000: Julie A. Buckler. The Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia. Stanford University Press, 2000. Julie Buckler has produced a brilliant analysis of how opera and opera-going in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Russia were reflected in Russian literature and shaped Russian "high" culture. Surveying theaters, singers, opera-companies, composers, fiction-writers, and memoirists in rich detail, Prof. Buckler time and again keeps a steady hand on her lorgnette, always striking an admirable balance between close reading of cultural minutiae and framing her project in the larger issues of social and literary theory. Delicious passages and insights abound: the vital semiotics of audience-seating in opera theaters; the burning of the Moscow Bolshoi as operatic spectacle; a wide-ranging chapter on Verdi's La Traviata in Russian criticism and fiction; scrutiny of the nineteenth-century divas as cultural texts; Bellini's aria "Casta diva" as Oblomov's aesthetic anthem; prose portraits written by Pauline Viardot herself; Turgenev's enraptured descriptions of Viardot-the-goddess. These passages are accompaniedby myriad references to much less well-known writers and singers who paint a memorable portrait of the operatic enterprise in Russia just as Russian music was rising to cultural preeminence. Dozens of superb illustrations complement the vividness of Prof. Buckler's narrative, and The Literary Lorgnette is a fine example of the rich book production values for which Stanford University Press is well known. This volume is a fine example of what is best in interdisciplinary Slavic studies today, and Julie Buckler deserves our heartiest congratulations. Best Translation into English 2000: Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass. Road-Side Dog, by Czeslaw Milosz. New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1998. The partnership between Robert Hass and Czeslaw Milosz as translators of Milosz's poetry has grown and evolved for many years. In this collection, as in many previous collaborations, the two handle the translation of individual poems superbly, taking the English language to new heights of beauty and wit. Yet beyond this achievement, the two have over time managed to generate a recognizable and unique poetic voice in English. One is tempted to say that they have succeeded not only in translating Milosz's works, but his linguistic presence. With this prize, the Association recognizes this extraordinary achievement, as it is realized in this wonderful new collection of poetry. Back to top Publications Committee membership and contact information The AATSEEL Publications Committee consists of fifteen members who serve staggered three-year terms, each of whom is assigned to one of four book-prize juries corresponding to his or her disciplinary affiliation and qualifications. All correspondence for the committee should be addressed to the current chair (term ends Dec. 2011): Professor Michael Wachtel Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Princeton University 249 East Pyne Princeton, NJ 08544 Tel: 609-258-0114 Fax: 609-258-2204 Email: wachtel@princeton.edu Language pedagogy jury:
Linguistics jury:
Literary/cultural studies jury:
Translation jury:
Last updated 01/10/2009.
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