David MacFadyen is a graduate of the University of London and UCLA. He is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA and has authored books on subjects ranging from the poetry of Joseph Brodsky (Joseph Brodsky and the Baroque, 1999; Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse, 2000), to Russian popular songs (Red Stars: Personality and the Soviet Popular Song after 1955, 2001; Èstrada?! Grand Narratives and the Philosophy of the Russian Popular Song 1982-2000, 2001; Songs for Fat People: Affect, Emotion and Celebrity in the Soviet Popular Song, 1900

to 1955, 2002), to animated and feature films of the Soviet Union (The Sad Comedy of Èl'dar Riazanov: An Introduction to Russia's Most Popular Filmmaker, 2003; Yellow Crocodiles and Blue Oranges: Russian Animated Film after World War Two, 2004). He has recently finished a monograph, Russian Culture in Uzbekistan (for Routledge), and another book-length study of Russian TV drama and comedy is due this fall from the same publisher. An edited collection of articles on Anna Akhmatova appeared via the National Library of Russia in July 2006.



Michael Rouland (Ph.D. 2005, Georgetown University) is a Havighurst Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Miami University. His dissertation, "Music and the Making of the Kazak Nation, 1920-1936," considers the Soviet policy of rooting both socialist and nationalist messages in public performance culture as part of a modernization campaign to promote nationalism, a constructed national vision, and a national state in Kazakstan. His interests include filmic, literary, and musical expressions of Central Asian identity and he has authored several articles on these themes. He is currently editing a collection of articles on the performative aspects of Eurasian identity and researching a biography of Mukhtar Auezov.

Martha Brill Olcott is a Senior Associate with the Russian & Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. She co-directs the Carnegie Moscow Center Project on Religion, Society, and Security in the former Soviet Union. She is professor emerita at Colgate University, having taught political science there from 1974 to 2002. Olcott served for five years as a director of the Central Asian American Enterprise Fund. Prior to her work at the Carnegie Endowment, Olcott served as a special consultant to former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Soon after 9/11, she was selected by Washingtonian magazine for its list of "71 People the President Should Listen To" about the war on terrorism.

Selected Publications:Central Asia's Second Chance ( Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005); Getting It Wrong: Regional Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with Anders Åslund and Sherman Garnett (Carnegie Endowment, 1999); Russia After Communism edited with Anders Åslund (Carnegie Endowment, 1999); The Kazakhs (Hoover Institution Press, 1995).

Martha Brill Olcott's talk on Thursday, November 2, is sponsored by:

The Graduate Program for Cultural Studies, the Center for Russian and East European Studies (REES), and the Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences

 

 

 

This series is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Film Studies Program.  It was made possible by the support of the Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and it would not have been possible without the generosity of Forrest Ciesol.