Shevchenko Workshop in Ukrainian Studies

The Shevchenko Scientific Society in the United States, in partnership with the American Association for Ukrainian Studies and Razom for Ukraine, will host a workshop in Ukrainian Studies this fall. Early-career scholars, including PhD candidates and post-doctoral fellows based in the United States, will present their research and engage in a multidisciplinary dialogue with experts in the field. The in-person workshop will be held in New York City on October 31 – November 1, 2025, which will provide participants with an opportunity to attend some events at the Ukrainian Cultural Festival.

Workshop Program

October 31/Friday

6:00 pm – 6:15 pm Opening Remarks

Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas

6:15 pm – 7:30 pm Keynote Address: Reflections on Ukrainian Studies During Wartime 

Paul D’Anieri, University of California, Riverside

7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Reception

November 1/Saturday

9:00 am – 9:30 am Coffee/Registration

9:30 am – 11:15 am Panel 1. Literature and Culture during the 1920s Cultural Revival 

Chair: Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham University

The Unresolved Revolution: Yuri Smolych and the Ukrainian War of Independence

William Ronald Debnam, Columbia University 

No Laughing Matter: Ostap Vyshnia’s Hunting Smiles

Nicole Gonik, University of California, Berkeley 

The Poet and His Masks: Poetic Ventriloquism in Pavlo Tychyna’s Later Poetry as a Modernist Device 

Olha Khometa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

It is… how to put it gently… entre chien et loup: Space and Illness in Mykola Khvylovy’s Povist’ pro Sanatorijnu Zonu

Paul Morrison, Harvard University 

Discussants: Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas; Halyna Hryn, Harvard University

11:30 am – 1:15 pm Panel 2. Contesting Gender Norms 

Chair: Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas

The War Bodies, the Geobodies, and the Gender Neutrality of War. The Analysis of Art Practices of Contemporary Ukrainian Artists

Ewa Sułek, Harvard University 

Women, War, and Ethics of Care in Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees 

Oksana Vykhopen, University of Kansas 

Performing Gender and Redefining Identity in Wartime Ukraine

Oksana Moroz, Messiah University 

Instrumentalizing Queerness: Ukrainian Literature as Cultural Resistance

Ali Karakaya, Stanford University 

Discussants: Catherine Wanner, Pennsylvania State University; Yuliya Ladygina, Pennsylvania State University

1:15 pm – 2:15 pm Lunch

2:15 pm – 4:00 pm Panel 3. Social Identities and Resistance 

Chair: Paul D’Anieri, University of California, Riverside

Folklore and the Crimean Tatar Tragedy: Perso-Turkic Tales, Greco-Byzantine Legends, and an Untold Genocide in Soviet Crimea

Diego Benning Wang, Harvard University 

“‘As strong as a diamond’: The Soviet people and Ukrainian identity in Komunist Ukraïny (1968-69).”

Daniel Berardino, University of California, Berkeley 

Choosing Religious Nationalism: Local Religious Behavior during the Russian War on Ukraine

Marika Olijar, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Populism, Political Communication, and Perceptions of the Russia–Ukraine War in the Global South: Evidence from India

Adam Lenton, Wake Forest University 

Discussants: Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham University; Sophia Wilson, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

4:15 pm – 5:30 pm Roundtable “Cultural Diplomacy and Ukrainian Studies” 

Chair: Oleksa Alex Martiniouk, Razom for Ukraine 

Panelists: Kateryna Smagliy, Embassy of Ukraine in the USA 

Sophia Wilson, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville  

Olga Zaitseva-Herz, University of Alberta 

Nataliia Shuliakova, Yale University

6:00 pm – 8:30 pm Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Photography, Poetry, and Song from Ukraine’s Shadows 

Exhibit Opening Reception & Musical-Poetic Performance

Introductory remarks by Alex Averbuch, University of Michigan 

Musical-poetic performance by poet Alex Averbuch, translators Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky, and composer-vocalist Olga Zaitseva-Herz  

A powerful exhibit and musico-poetic performance by Alex Averbuch and Olga Zaitseva-Herz, staged within the exhibit space itself. Surrounded by rare photographs of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters, audiences experience poetry, song, and storytelling that connect forced labor, the Holocaust, and today’s war in Ukraine.

This event is part of the Ukrainian Cultural Festival