I’m tickled and excited by the opportunity to work as a Visiting Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at Harvard University in the Fall of 2026, and grateful to Bard for giving me the opportunity to take the unpaid leave from my full-time job. I’ll be teaching two classes in the fall, one for undergrads and the other for grads. Descriptions are posted below!

I’m also just back from Saskatoon, Saskatechewan, where I am honored to be included among those who have delivered the 2026 Mohyla Lecture. My lecture was titled: “Folk the Future: Reimagining Ukraine’s ‘Usable Pasts’ Through New Interpretations of Old Songs.” The lecture and reception were hosted by the Ukrainian Museum of Canada, and sponsored by St. Thomas More College of the University of Saskatchewan. I was in Saskatoon for all of 36 hours, but I learned so much about the history of the Ukrainian settling of the Canadian prairies, and was incredibly moved and inspired by the Museum’s treatment of First Nations and Ukrainian settler histories of entwinement, conflict, and collaboration. William Kurelek’s painting series “Pioneer Ukrainian Women” was a revelation, and some of the archival documents on display have really gripped my imagination, including the amazing reconstruction of a typical advertisement targeting Ukrainian farmers in Austro-Hungary in the 1890s… you can catch a glimpse of that here. I got to share a meal Jen Budney, the inspiring director of the Ukrainian Museum of Canada on Thursday evening, and then attended an opening reception of another amazing exhibition at the Ukrainian Museum of NYC shortly after flying back into LGA on Friday evening, where Elena Siyanko is doing amazing things. A good reminder that there are visionary people doing good work in so many places.