Course Search

× Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

HI328 East European Studies and Exiled Scholars During the Cold War

Spring 2025

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda


Fulfills OSUN Human Rights Certificate requirements

This course explores the academic culture and identity politics of East European exile scholarship in the West after WWII. It considers the institutional and intellectual history of emerging East European studies in North American and West European universities, and the influence of the “Cold War university” on the academic mapping and conceptual understanding of Eastern Europe. The course will focus on diverse individual scholars, public activists and academic projects concentrating on Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and the Baltic countries. The academic projects of East European migrant communities in the West are conventionally studied as efforts at preserving pre-Soviet ethnic heritages and forms of knowledge in émigré academic institutions.  In this course, their role and inner dynamic will be analyzed in a transnational perspective, with special attention to those exiled East European scholars who belonged to several national spheres and were key communicators between Western academia and their migrant communities. We will analyze how displacement influenced individual careers and research paths, and pay attention to the contested background of selected exiled scholars.  The course will highlight how academic communication across the Iron Curtain contributed to international academic exchange, and how the East European migrant communities tried to influence academic politics and historical study in the West. In the concluding part of the course, we will discuss whether and how the exiled East European scholars changed paradigms of Western approaches to Eastern Europe and offered an alternative to the Soviet academic projects.
Syllabus

× Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Movements and Thinkers

HI328 East European Studies and Exiled Scholars During the Cold War

Spring 2025
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda


Fulfills OSUN Human Rights Certificate requirements

This course explores the academic culture and identity politics of East European exile scholarship in the West after WWII. It considers the institutional and intellectual history of emerging East European studies in North American and West European universities, and the influence of the “Cold War university” on the academic mapping and conceptual understanding of Eastern Europe. The course will focus on diverse individual scholars, public activists and academic projects concentrating on Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and the Baltic countries. The academic projects of East European migrant communities in the West are conventionally studied as efforts at preserving pre-Soviet ethnic heritages and forms of knowledge in émigré academic institutions.  In this course, their role and inner dynamic will be analyzed in a transnational perspective, with special attention to those exiled East European scholars who belonged to several national spheres and were key communicators between Western academia and their migrant communities. We will analyze how displacement influenced individual careers and research paths, and pay attention to the contested background of selected exiled scholars.  The course will highlight how academic communication across the Iron Curtain contributed to international academic exchange, and how the East European migrant communities tried to influence academic politics and historical study in the West. In the concluding part of the course, we will discuss whether and how the exiled East European scholars changed paradigms of Western approaches to Eastern Europe and offered an alternative to the Soviet academic projects.
Syllabus

× Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Module: Elective

HI328 East European Studies and Exiled Scholars During the Cold War

Spring 2025
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda


Fulfills OSUN Human Rights Certificate requirements

This course explores the academic culture and identity politics of East European exile scholarship in the West after WWII. It considers the institutional and intellectual history of emerging East European studies in North American and West European universities, and the influence of the “Cold War university” on the academic mapping and conceptual understanding of Eastern Europe. The course will focus on diverse individual scholars, public activists and academic projects concentrating on Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and the Baltic countries. The academic projects of East European migrant communities in the West are conventionally studied as efforts at preserving pre-Soviet ethnic heritages and forms of knowledge in émigré academic institutions.  In this course, their role and inner dynamic will be analyzed in a transnational perspective, with special attention to those exiled East European scholars who belonged to several national spheres and were key communicators between Western academia and their migrant communities. We will analyze how displacement influenced individual careers and research paths, and pay attention to the contested background of selected exiled scholars.  The course will highlight how academic communication across the Iron Curtain contributed to international academic exchange, and how the East European migrant communities tried to influence academic politics and historical study in the West. In the concluding part of the course, we will discuss whether and how the exiled East European scholars changed paradigms of Western approaches to Eastern Europe and offered an alternative to the Soviet academic projects.
Syllabus