28th Annual UG Conference Program (2025)
TWENTY EIGHTH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE
ON SLAVIC AND EAST/CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Royce Hall 314
8:00-8:45 am Check-in. Coffee and pastries
8:45-9:00 am Opening Remarks by Igor Pilshchikov, Chair of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Literatures and Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan (UCLA)
Panel 1: 9:00-9:55 am
Internal and External Political Issues in the Balkans
Chair: Milo Gazivoda (UCLA)
Kenan Cackovic (UCLA) – “Foreign Powers Influence on Bosnia and Herzegovina”
Alexandra Jankov (UCLA, virtual) – “Hidden Economies, Visible Consequences: Informality in the Balkan Economy”
Aliyah McCoy (UCLA) – “Post-Conflict Public Health: Systemic Challenges in the Former Yugoslavia”
Panel 2: 10:00-10:40 am
Current Social Movements in the Balkans
Chair: Konstantin Pejakovic (UCLA)
Doris Butković (UCLA) – “Masculinity, Nationalism, and Identity in Yugoslav and Post- Yugoslav Contexts”
Katarina Čeprnić (UCLA) – “Nobelovci: The Nobel-Peace Prize Nominated Students in Serbia”
COFFEE BREAK 10:40-10:50 am
Panel 3: 10:50-11:30 am
The Scopes of the Novel in 19th to Early 20th Century Literature
Chair: Gabriella Carlson (UCLA)
Vanessa Liu (USC) – “Modes of Faith: An Investigation into the Beliefs in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov”
Alexandra Pimentelli (UCLA) – “The Symbolism of Water in Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur and Its Reflection of Revolutionary Disillusionment”
LUNCH 11:30-12:30 pm (lunch will be provided)
Panel 4: 12:30-1:10 pm
The Mysteries of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita
Chair: Sophia Pacheco (UCLA)
Kysten Harrold (University of Wisconsin-Madison, virtual) – “Facts Are the Most Stubborn Thing in the World: Framing Catchphrases in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita Through the Lens of Contemporary Russia”
Katarina Leek (University of Wisconsin-Madison, virtual) – “Power and Authority in Master and Margarita”
Panel 5: 1:15-2:25 pm
20th-century Cross-cultural Communications in Poetry and Prose
Chair: Galiia Sadykova (UCLA)
Lucille Lorenz (UC Berkeley) – “Psycholinguistic Cartographies: Taking a Walk Through the Streets of Bruno Schulz”
Alina Garmash (UCLA) – “Lost in Translation: The Preservation of Poetry Across Cultures in Boris Pasternak’s poems”
Allyson Dahl (UC Santa Barbara, virtual) – “The Yakut Dog Breed in Kolyma Tales: A Symbol for the Lost”
Frances Hall (UC Riverside) – “You Can’t Have My Soul”: Varlam Shalamov’s ‘Prosthetic Appliances’ Through the Lens of Descartes’ The Discourse on Method”
COFFEE BREAK 2:30-2:50 pm
Panel 6: 2:50-3:30 pm
Oppression and Confrontation in 20th-Century Russian and Soviet Art
Chair: Elena Makarova (UCLA)
Presley Brennan (UCLA) – “Confined and Confused: Characters Navigating Existing and Coping within Systems of Oppression in Vladimir Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker”
Angelina Jeyko (UCLA) – “The Effect of Rock Music in the Soviet Union on the Youth During Perestroika”
Panel 7: 3:35-4:15 pm
International Relationships in the History of the Soviet Union
Chair: Logan Shobe (UCLA)
Lauren Kirkwood (UCLA) – “Seeking Refuge and Solidarity: African Americans in the Soviet Union”
Nathan Ayala (UC Riverside) – “Soviet Cultural Exchange in Mexico: An Early Cold War Perspective”
Panel 8: 4:20-5:30 pm
Current Global Geopolitical Conflicts: Resistance and Solutions
Chair: Oliver Seifert (UCLA)
Shayna Hawk (UC Santa Barbara) – “Feminist Translocalities & Digital Resistance: Intersectional Organizing in Post-Soviet Spaces, 2014-2023”
Mallory Klucken (Portland State University, virtual) – “The Role of Environment in Conflict Discourse: Analyzing the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”
Elise Keller (UC Santa Barbara, virtual) – “Diversity in the Russian Military: The Growing Presence of Women in the Russian Armed Forces”
Ivana Prokopenko (UCLA) – “Ceding Land for NATO Membership: Ukraine’s Path to Peace or a Risky Gamble?”
5:30-5:40 pm Closing Remarks & Presentation of Certificates: Sasha Razor (UCSB) and Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan (UCLA)