Slavic and East European Languages
Awards Recipients 2005
2005 AWARD
for
EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING (Post-Secondary)
MARIA CARLSON
Maria Carlson is an exemplary teacher-scholar, and this award justly recognizes her outstanding contribution in teaching.
Maria’s courses capture the dramatic sweep of Russian intellectual history, from a general-education survey of Russian culture, to an upper-level course on “The Devil in Russian Literature,” to graduate courses on Russian 18th century literature, 20th Century Russian Poetry and Soviet Literature. She is best known for her year-long “Main Currents of Russian Thought,” a course that has inspired and challenged students for almost twenty years.
For Maria Carlson, teaching does not end in the classroom. Not only does she set aside as much time for office hours as for teaching, but she will clear her calendar for any student who seeks her advice. Manya’s mantra is: “the student comes first.” One can walk down the Slavic Department hallway almost any time of any day and find a student in her office exploring topics for a term paper, restructuring a vita, discussing career plans, fretting about an upcoming job interview, selecting a course of study, putting together a first syllabus, bouncing an idea, and, every once in a great while, coming back to thank her for that key piece of advice she gave five years before that led, in hindsight, to the right course of action.
Maria Carlson’s talent as a great teacher and a devoted mentor is an irreplaceable asset not only to the University of Kansas, but to the whole field of Slavic Studies.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
For
EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING (Secondary)
RUTH EDELMAN
Ruth Edelman has taught all levels of Russian and English as a Second Language in the Tenafly New Jersey school system since 1989. She holds degrees in Russian Language and Literature from Brandeis University and the University of Illinois. Always active and involved in professional development opportunities, she has participated in a number of summer institutes and programs in Russia. Beyond the classroom, Ruth has led many student exchange programs to Russia, including the ACTR summer exchange for Olympiada winners. She serves as New Jersey Olympiada coordinator and is a member of the ACTR Board of Directors. She is a co-author of the national Standards for Teaching Russian K-12.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO SCHOLARSHIP
WILLIAM MILLS TODD III
William Mills Todd writes over three hundred letters of recommendation a year—for fellow scholars, dissertators, undergraduates. This index of Todd's astonishing activity on behalf of his present and future colleagues reflects perfectly the focus of his scholarship: literature as an institution. His first book, The Familiar Letter as a Literary Genre in the Age of Pushkin (1976), understood “institutions” in an intimate way, as the quasi-private voices of elite literary circles; Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin (1996) broadened the focus to include sociological and commercial pressures on writers, their fragile professionalization in Nicholas I’s Russia, and the internalization of such concerns in their novels. The book now being completed is the natural—and breathtakingly ambitious—sequel to these Romantic-era studies: In the Fullness of Time: Serialization of the Russian Novel. At its center will sit the huge prose works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, whose characters came to life alongside their authors and readers in real time. Todd defines this current project, which will provide both a poetics and a pragmatics of serialization, as the third installment in his “institutional history of the development of Russian prose.” But in fact there have been hundreds of such installments, from and around Todd as a mentor and scholar, for thirty years. He himself has become an institution in the most enviable sense of that word: a gladsome source of advice, wisdom, and refuge in these often unsettling times for the humanities. The Slavic field is deeply in his debt.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
Outstanding Contribution to the Profession
MARIA LEKIC
AATSEEL recognizes Dr. Maria Lekic for her outstanding service to the Slavic profession. Author of numerous articles and coauthor of no fewer than 7 different textbooks for learners of Russian, Lekic has been a pioneer in the development of proficiency-oriented, content-based, task-based, and
standards-based learning modules for the delivery of instruction over the internet. She has been the driving force behind ACTR's Russnet, indisputably one the most successful electronic resources for foreign language learning and teaching in any language field, and the new and innovative advanced placement examination for Russian, an examination which serves as a model for other language fields, as well as teacher training and instructional materials developed for Russian AP classes. Lekic's contributions to the Slavic profession include long-standing service on the ACTR Board of Directors, work with teachers at NASA and active involvement in the annual ACTR Olympiada of Spoken Russian. Her work brings together teachers and students of Russian at all levels, on the one hand, as well as teachers of Russian and teachers of other languages, both commonly taught and less commonly taught, on the other. Lekic has enriched the field, enhanced our curricula, improved our teaching, and expanded our horizons.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 JOE MALIK AWARD
for
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO AATSEEL
KAREN EVANS-ROMAINE
Karen Evans-Romaine’s service to the field of Slavic Studies is truly impressive, especially for an active teacher-scholar, who is still at the beginning of her career.
Before defending her dissertation, in 1993 she became the Fulbright Representative to the Russian Federation, overseeing the placement of US Fulbright scholars in Russia, as well as the selection of Russian scholars to come to the United States.
In 1996 when she started teaching at Ohio University, she joined AATSEEL’s Program Committee, becoming chair of the committee in 2001. For three years, Karen oversaw all aspects of the annual meeting—from accepting abstracts, to forming and scheduling panels and conference events, to overseeing the publication of abstracts in the conference program. Her work required both vision to strengthen the quality of AATSEEL’s annual meeting and painstaking attention to detail.
Since 2003 she has directed Middlebury College’s Russian School, leading the intensive summer immersion program that brings students from all over the world into contact with dedicated teachers of Russian.
In these three positions – by no means the full list of her service activities-- -- Karen Evans-Romaine has served the whole of our field -- from beginning students of Russian to senior researchers-- with the grace, sensitivity and genuine concern.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
BEST BOOK IN SLAVIC LINGUISTICS
ROBERT D. GREENBERG
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.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
BEST BOOK IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
STEPHEN LOVELL
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 definitions, 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.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
BEST CONTRIBUTION TO LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY
LAURA A. JANDA and STEPHEN J. CLANCY
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.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
BEST CONTRIBUTION TO LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY
LAUREN G. LEIGHTON
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.
The American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages
2005 AWARD
for
BEST TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH
BILL JOHNSTON
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.