aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Change in Ukrainian courses

[Diana Howansky <dhh2@columbia.edu>]

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING COURSE HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL THE 
SPRING 2007 SEMESTER, WHEN IT WILL BE OFFERED AS A 3-CREDIT CLASS:

DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS: THE UNITED NATIONS THROUGH THE EYES OF A 
UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR
Instructor: Ambassador Valeriy Kuchinsky, Permanent Mission of Ukraine 
to the United Nations

The aim of the course is to share the wide experience of a career 
diplomat who has been linked with the United Nations for decades. The 
course provides a comprehensive and contemporary examination of the 
United Nations and its role in three core issues of international 
relations: international peace and security; human rights and 
humanitarian affairs; building peace through sustainable development. It 
gives first-hand insights into the politics of today’s multilateral 
diplomacy as it is conducted within the United Nations framework and 
analyzes the inputs of individual member-states.

*****************

COURSES OFFERED BY THE UKRAINIAN STUDIES PROGRAM DURING THE FALL 2006 
(BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 5)*

WAR AND SOCIETY IN EASTERN EUROPE, 1939-PRESENT
History W4204
Call Number: 13109
3 credits
Instructor: Tarik Amar
Thursdays 9:00-10:50am
Location: 302 Fayerweather
Department of History

The main objective of this course is to examine the Second World War as 
a catastrophic as well as defining moment in the history and politics of 
modern Eastern Europe. The course focuses not only on the Second World 
War itself but on its legacies – the ongoing powerful emotional and 
political immediacy of the wartime. Thematically, the material ranges 
from the everyday life of the non-military populations to the history 
and legacy of responses within the whirlwind of occupation, deportation, 
ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Geographically, the course mostly covers 
the “lands between” Germany and Russia, including Ukraine and western 
parts of the Soviet Union. Put differently, the area covered is roughly 
identical with the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Baltic 
states, and part of the former Habsburg empire (minus Austria and the 
empire’s Italian possessions).

THROUGH THE PRISM OF PLACE: PERSPECTIVES OF THE (ONCE) SOCIALIST WORLD
Anthropology W4180
Call Number: 76288
3 credits
Instructor: Diana Blank
Mondays and Wednesdays 9:10-10:25am
963 Schermerhorn Extension
Department of Anthropology

This seminar explores the conjunction of subjective human experience and 
location in place in Ukraine and neighboring areas. The utopian 
Bolshevik project that understood lived environment as a crucible for 
social revolution serves as a point of departure. The course traces the 
historical evolutions of this socialist project, and explores the array 
of actually-existing common experiences that were shaped by and gave 
shape to these interventions, as well as the ways socialist subjects 
often participated as agents in these processes of politics and 
planning. While the course is informed by perspectives from history, 
literary studies, and architecture and urban planning, it offers a 
distinctly anthropological perspective – one that emphasizes the 
construction of meaning through the experience, practice, and narration 
of place. In the course’s final segment, we shift our gaze to the 
contemporary era of socialist implosion and of global dislocation, and 
to the new (and perhaps even intensified) forms of place-sensing ushered 
in by these reconfigurations in time and space.

ELEMENTARY UKRAINIAN I
Ukrainian W1101 section 001
Call Number: 47996
3 points
Instructor: Rory Finnin
Tuesday Thursday 5:40pm-6:55pm
716A Hamilton Hall
Slavic Languages Department

This course is designed for individuals with little or no knowledge of 
Ukrainian. Basic grammar structures are introduced and reinforced with 
equal emphasis on developing oral and written communication skills. 
Specific attention is paid to acquisition by students of high-frequency 
vocabulary and its optimal use in communicative transactions closely 
imitating real-life settings. By the end of the course, students are 
expected to conduct short conversations concerning common aspects of 
daily life; to be able to initiate, maintain, and bring to a close 
simple exchanges by asking and responding to all major types of 
questions; and to read simple factual texts and write routine messages.

INTERMEDIATE UKRAINIAN I
Ukrainian W1201 section 001
Call Number: 51096
3 points
Instructor: Yuri Shevchuk
Monday Wednesday 6:10pm-7:25pm
716A Hamilton Hall
Slavic Languages Department

This course starts with a review and subsequent reinforcement of grammar 
fundamentals and core vocabulary pertaining to the most common aspects 
of daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of 
students’ communicative skills (oral and written) on such topics as the 
self, family, work and leisure, travel, meals and others. A number of 
Ukrainian language idiosyncrasies, like verb aspect and verbs of motion, 
receive special attention. Course materials are selected with the aim of 
introducing students to some functional and stylistic differences in 
modern Ukrainian, as well as distinctions between the Kyiv and Lviv 
literary variants. By the end of the course, students will be able to 
narrate and describe in all major time frames, and deal effectively with 
unanticipated complications in most formal and informal settings.

ADVANCED UKRAINIAN I
Ukrainian W3001 section 001
Call Number: 51946
3 points
Instructor: Yuri Shevchuk
Monday Wednesday 4:10pm-5:25pm
716A Hamilton Hall
Slavic Languages Department

This is course for students who wish to develop their mastery of 
Ukrainian. Further study of grammar includes patterns of word formation, 
participle, gerund, declension of numerals, a more in-depth study of 
such difficult subjects as verbal aspect, and verbs of motion. Original 
texts and other materials drawn from classical and contemporary 
Ukrainian literature, press, electronic media and film are designed to 
give students familiarity with linguistic features typical of such 
functional styles as written and spoken, formal and informal, scientific 
and newspaper language, etc. The course is designed to enable students 
to discuss extensively a wide range of general interest topics and some 
special fields of interest, particularly relating to their research and 
work, politics and culture; to hypothesize; to support opinions and 
handle linguistically unfamiliar situations; as well as to conduct 
independent field research with Ukrainian language sources.

NOTE:  Many of the Columbia Ukrainian Studies Program courses listed 
above are open to students from other universities in the New York 
metropolitan area, as well as to outside individuals interested in 
non-credit continuing studies. Undergraduate and graduate students from 
New York University, for example, can register directly with their 
school for Ukrainian language classes at Columbia, while PhD candidates 
from universities which are part of the Columbia University Consortium 
(e.g. NYU, CUNY, New School) can register for non-language courses by 
obtaining appropriate approval from both their home school and Columbia.

*Dates and times are subject to change.



-- 
Diana Howansky
Staff Associate
Ukrainian Studies Program
Columbia University
Room 1208, MC3345
420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY  10027
(212) 854-4697
ukrainianstudies@columbia.edu
http://www.harrimaninstitute.org/courses/ukrainian_studies_program.html