TWENTY SECOND ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE
ON SLAVIC AND EAST/CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES
APRIL 20, 2019 UCLA
9:00-9:30 am Coffee and Refreshments (Kaplan 348)
9:35-9:40 am Opening Remarks (Kaplan 348): Ronald Vroon, Chair of the Department of Slavic,
Eastern European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, UCLA
9:50-11:10 am Session 1 Panel A: Topics in Russian, Soviet, and American Political Policies
(Kaplan A51)
Chair: Melissa Leyba
Hannah Bennet (UCLA) “Beyond Fort Ross: Defining Russia’s Impact on California, Past and Present”
Dmitri Alexander Simes (Johns Hopkins University) “The Clinton Administration and Russian
Reformers” Abigail Aurelia Staggemeier (UCSD) “Биопрепарат and the Biological Weapons Treaty of
1972”
Rebecca Van Vliet (UCLA) “The Questionable Status of the Woman Question: An “Engaged” Comparative
Political Theory Approach to Lenin, Kollontai, and the Legal, Economic, and Physical Ramifications
of Their Thoughts”
9:50-11:10 am Session 1 Panel B: Topics in Slavic and Romanian Culture (Kaplan 135)
Chair: Dane Reighard
A. M. LaVey (Portland State University) “Localization in Buryat Buddhist stupa design: an analysis
of the Stupa Dzharun Khashor”
Chandini Jaya White (The Ohio State University) “Russian language policy and post-Soviet pop music:
A comparison between Baltic and East Slavic Nations”
Clayton Demski (UCLA) “‘Paraphernalia’: The Social Impact of the Anti-communist Revolution in ’90s
Romania” Will Maher (University of Wisconsin-Madison) “Soccer in Soviet Culture”
11:10-11:20 BREAK
11:20-12:40 pm Session 2 Panel A: Contemporary Political and Economic Questions in the Russian
Federation and Croatia (Kaplan A51)
Chair: Aleksandra Vojvodic
David Paul Straub (University of Georgia) “Building a prosthetics company in Russia: The Past, the
Present and the Future of the Industry”
Erica Kaila Bressner (University of Georgia) “The Challenges of Import and Export Control in Trade
with Russia Ian A. Perez (UCLA) “The Impact of Emigration in Croatia”
Elisabeth Frans Bruggeman (UCSD) “Chelyabinsk: The Impact and Legacy of Soviet Nuclear
Mismanagement”
11:20-12:40 pm Session 2 Panel B: Topics in Russian Literature and Art of the 20th Century (Kaplan
135)
Chair: Jesse O’Dell
Gracen Blackwell (UCLA) “Manuscripts Don’t Burn: Fantasy as a Medium of Critique in The Master and
Margarita
Henry Jeong (Queen’s University at Kingston) “Outsiders among Outsiders: The Foreignness of
Khodasevich and Nabokov in understanding their views towards 1930s Russian Emigre literature”
Jessica Rhee (Portland State University) “‘We Live Without Feeling The Country Beneath Us’:
Recontextualizing Mandelstam’s ‘Ode’ to Stalin in Contemporary Russian Media”
Ruby Bruder (UCSB) “Russian Suprematism: Malevich’s “Black Square” as a Religious Icon”
12:40-1:40 LUNCH (Kaplan 348)
1:40-2:50 pm Session 3 Panel A: Contemporary Political Questions in the Russian Federation
(Kaplan A51)
Chair: Juan Ochoa
Tamari Dzotsenidze (UC Santa Barbara) “Two Nations at War: Media Depictions of the 2008 War Between
Georgia and Russia.”
Kennedy Lee (University of Wisconsin-Madison) “Putin’s Complicated Relationship with Russian Jews,
Israel, and the Middle East”
Inna Kuzminykh (UC Santa Barbara) “Nationalism In Russian: Explaining the Current Trend”
1:40-2:55 pm Session 3 Panel B: Topics in Russian Literature and Theatre (Kaplan 135)
Chair: Susie Bauckus
Isabelle Rupani (UCSD) “Polysemic Queerness”
Kay Dilworth (UCLA) “A Historical Tragedy: Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and Aleksey
Konstantinovich Tolstoy” Morgan Hansen (UCLA) “Cultural Performance in the Theatrical Zeitgeist”
Sashini Kannan (Bryn Mawr College) “What’s in a Name? A Comparison of the Life of St. Euphrosyne of
Polotsk and the Life of St. Euphrosyne of Alexandria”
2:50-3:10 COFFEE BREAK (Kaplan 348)
3:10-4:30 pm Session 4 Panel A: Contemporary Political Questions in the Russian Federation,
Poland, and the US (Kaplan A51)
Chair: Michael Lavery
Justin Magoon (University of Wisconsin-Madison) “The Loss of American Preeminence in Military
Aviation”
Melissa Miller (UCLA) “Putin and Patriarch Kirill’s Mutually Advantageous Relationship and Its
Effect on the Russian Federation’s Growing HIV Epidemic”
University of California Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies 2
University of California Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies 3
Yana Demeshko (UCLA) “Putting the “War” in Warsaw: How Russia is Sabotaging Poland’s Standing with
the West.” Leanna Kramer (UCLA) “An Attack on Liberal Democracy: Modern Russian Cyber Warfare.”
3:10-4:30 pm Session 4 Panel B: Topics in Slavic and Romanian Literature and Film (Kaplan 135)
Chair: Ross Mitchell
Rebekah Livermore (UCLA) “The Role of the Gothic in Chekhov’s ‘The Black Monk’”
Dylan Tanner Buggenhagen (UC Santa Barbara) “An analysis of deep time in Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Солярис”
Maura Julia Dooley (UCLA) “Anarchy is a Feminine Noun: Věra Chytilová’s New Wave Decade, 1962-1972”
Jonathan Randall Den Bleyker (UCLA) “The Religious Implication of Romanian Folk Ballads: ‘Master
Builder Manole’”
4:35 pm Closing Remarks & Presentation of Certificates (Kaplan A51): Larry McLellan, Department of
Germanic, Slavic, & Semitic Studies, UCSB
The University of California Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies
is co- sponsored by:
More information (parking, contact information, and other logistics) can be found at our website:
Undergraduate Conference on Slavic & East/Central European Studies
Conference Coordinators:
Dr. Susan Kresin Senior Lecturer / UCLA Russian Flagship Program Student Coordinator
Lydia Roberts Ph.D. Student
Peter Winsky Ph.D. Candidate
Special thanks to:
Deanna De La Hunt Student Affairs Officer
Chelsea Hall Student Worker/Office Assistant
Professor Ronald Vroon Professor / Chair of UCLA Department of Slavic, East European & Eurasian
Languages & Cultures
Professor Larry McLellan Lecturer at UCSB Department of Germanic, Slavic, & Semitic Studies