Seminary Represented at AAASS Convention

Holy Trinity Seminary was represented at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Washington D.C. between November 16 and 19, 2006. This annual scholarly forum offers panels in literature, linguistics, history, political science, and religion.

Deacon Vladimir Tsurikov, Assistant Dean of Holy Trinity Seminary and Instructor of Church Slavonic, chaired and participated in a roundtable entitled "Contemporary Russian Orthodoxy: Political, Social and Diasporic Identities." This well-attended roundtable also included presentations by Alexander Agadjanian (Department of Religion, State University of the Humanities, Moscow), Father Michael Meerson Aksenov (Rector of Christ the Savior Church, New York City), Vera Shevzov (Department of Religion, Smith College), and Andrei Zolotov (Editor, Russia Profile ). Topics discussed included an analysis of émigré influences on ecclesiastical attitudes in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, a historical account of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), a discussion of ethnic influences and diasporic identities within Russian Orthodoxy in the United States, and reflections on the present and future of the talks between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Nadiezsda Kizenko, Professor of History at the University at Albany (SUNY) and Instructor of Russian History at Holy Trinity Seminary presented a paper entitled "Shoes and Ships: The After-Life of the Holy Admiral Ushakov" at a panel dedicated to "Will Wonders Never Cease? Miracles in Russian Orthodoxy across the Centuries."

Svitlana Malyhina, Instructor of Russian Literature at Holy Trinity Seminary, presented a paper entitled "Hearing Voices of the Russian Youth: Language Portrait of a Generation" at a panel dedicated to "Language and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia."

The 39th National Convention of the AAASS will be held at the New Orleans Marriott in New Orleans, Louisiana, from Thursday, November 15, 2007 through Sunday, November 19, 2007. The theme of the 2007 AAASS convention is the persisting role of empire as practical category and analytical construct in the politics, history, culture, and literature of the region. For more information, please visit the AAASS' official website at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass/ .