TWENTY THIRD ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON SLAVIC AND EAST/CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES
May 2, 2020
9:00-9:10 am Opening Remarks: Ronald Vroon, Chair of the Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, UCLA
9:20-10:40 am Session 1 Panel A: Exploring Kazakh Language, Culture and Politics
Chair: Peter Winsky
Liana Ghahramanyan (UCLA) “The Lingua Franca: Systematic Russification of Soviet Republics in the
USSR Through Education”
Tyler Le (UCLA) “Centralized Power and the Demise of Community-Based Health Care in Kazakhstan”
James Nee (UCLA) “Between Russia and Sredn͡iai͡ a Azi͡ia: Kazakh Alterity in Historical Context”
Allison Verbil (UCLA) “The Sounds of Kazakh”
9:20-10:40 am Session 1 Panel B: Intra- and International Paradigms of Soviet Politics
Chair: Yana Demeshko
Fiona Battistoni (Reed College) “The Character of a Nation: Theory and Praxis of Racial Politics in
the Soviet Union (1921-1953)”
Caitlyn Hwang (UCSB) “Korean Air Lines Flight 007: How the Soviet Union Got Away with Shooting Down
a Passenger Plane”
Heather Lim, (UCSD) “The Moral Deficiency of Nabokov’s Aesthetes”
Joseph Matveyenko (UCLA) “The Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet Foreign Policy and Domestic Stagnation”
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10:40-11:00 BREAK
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11:00-2:20 pm Session 2 Panel A: Questions of Identity in Literature and Politics
Chair: Peter Winsky
Felipe Amirola (UCLA) “The Aesthetic of Broken Family: On Mise-en-scene in the Films of Andrey
Zvyagintsev”
Sophia Badalian (UCLA) “Back to the U.S.S.R.: Soviet Nostalgia in Armenia”
Daniel Dobrin (UCLA) “The Patriarchy’s Punishment: The Continuation of Misogynistic Attitudes and
the Resulting Catastrophic Effects of Toxic Masculinity on Russian Society
Alexandra Ivanova (UCLA) “
Archetypical Russian Heroine Through
Emigre Women’s Literature”
11:00-12:20 pm Session 2 Panel B: Issues of Contemporary Political Activity in Central Europe, the Balkans, and Russia
Chair: Yana Demeshko
Spencer Bonneteau (UCSD) “Language Education Amongst Ethnic Diversity: The Baltic States and Central Asia”
Charlotte Bruggeman (UCSD) “Climate Change in Russia: Impacts and Environmental Policy”
Nikola Nikolic (UCLA) “How and Why did Chicago Become One of the Largest Serbian Communities in the
World?”
Sedina Velic and Mina Cvjetinovic (UCLA) “The Perceptions and Expressions of Yugonostalgia in the ex-Yugoslav
Region and Diaspora Communities”
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12:20-1:00 LUNCH
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1:00-2:00 pm Session 3 Panel A: Studies in Russian and Soviet Drama and Film
Chair: Peter Winsky
Johnny Hu (UCLA) “The Cyclical Nature of Pushkin’s Little Dramas”
Kylie Kinne (UCLA) “Solaris: A Comparison Study of Novella and Film”
Jake “Pflugey” Pflughoeft (University of Wisconsin) “The Red Hubris and Art’s Eternal Power to Critique, Realized
Through Shakespeare”
1:00-2:00 pm Session 3 Panel B: Contemporary Discourse on Russian Politics
Chair: Yana Demeshko
Karina Dubourdieu (UCSD) “Russian Assinations of Russian Dissidents Overseas”
Melissa Leyba (UCLA) “Verses of a Nation: The Politics of Repression and Music Censorship Under Vladimir
Putin”
Delaney Thurmond (UCLA) ” Today’s Youth and their Expanding Role in Bridging the US-Russia Divide”
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2:10 pm Closing Remarks & Presentation of Certificates: Larry McLellan,
Department of Germanic, Slavic, & Semitic Studies, UCSB