Oleh Kotsyuba

Contact: kotsyuba@fas.harvard.edy

Current Harvard Profile

Dissertation Title: 

"Rules of Disengagement: Author, Audience, and Experimentation in Ukrainian and Russian Literature of the 1970s and 1980s"

Oleh earned his "Degree of a Specialist“ (equivalent to a Master of Arts degree) summa cum laude in German as Foreign Language and German Literature, English Language and Literature, and World Literature at the State (now – National) Pedagogical University of Ternopil, Ukraine, in 2002.

In 2006, he graduated from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI) with a Master of Arts degree in English.

In 2008, he earned a Master of Arts degree summa cum laude in Comparative Literature, Computational Linguistics, and Computer Science at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

Oleh’s research interests include:

• Contemporary Ukrainian literature and culture, especially vis-à-vis Europe and Russia
• Ukrainian and Russian literature in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods
• Literary process in countries under oppressive, socialist, or totalitarian regimes (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela)
• Colonial and post-colonial studies, concepts of state and nationhood
• Conceptualizations of literary history in terms of "change," "disruption," and "continuity"
• Russian-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Polish literary, cultural, and political relations
• Soviet literature and film, in particular through the lens of sotsrealism
• Feminist theory and gender studies in Eastern Europe 

Scholarly Publications

• Overtaking and Surpassing America: Ukrainian vs. Russian Literature in the post-Soviet period. Hannover: Ibidem-Verlag (book, forthcoming).
• Translations from Russian into German for the first collection of Roman Jakobson’s linguistic analyses in one language: Jakobson, Roman. Poesie der Grammatik und Grammatik der Poesie. Sämtliche Gedichtanalysen. Kommentierte deutsche Ausgabe. Ed. Hendrik Birus, Sebastian Donat. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.
• “Konceptualizacija intertekstual’nosti v romani Patrika Zjuskinda ‘Zapaxy. Istorija odnoho vbyvci’ (interpretacija obrazu Žana Grenuja jak kul’turnoho konstruktu postmodernists’koho pys’ma)”. Naukovi zapysky. Teorija literatury, porivnjal’ne literaturoznavstvo. Ternopil’s’kyj deržavnyj pedahohičnyj universytet. Serija literaturoznavstvo. Vypusk 3 (8) 2000. 100-112. 

Teaching

Fall term 2013-2014: Language Course “German A: Beginning German I” (Course Head: Dr. Lisa Parkes, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures)

Spring term 2012-2013: Advanced Russian Language Course (third year Russian) “Slavic 103: Reading, Composition, and Conversation” (Course Head: Dr. Natalia Reed, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures)

Spring term 2011-2012: Course in General Education (Harvard College): “Slavic 148: Strange Russian Writers” (Prof. Stephanie Sandler, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures)

Fall term 2011-2012: Course in the General Education (Harvard College): “Ethical Reasoning 28: Moral Inquiry in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky” (Prof. Justin Weir, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures)

Fall and Spring terms 2010-2011: Intermediate Russian Language Course (second year Russian) “Slavic B” (Course Head: Dr. Natalia Reed, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures) 

Conference Presentations

November 2013: Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (formerly: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies) (Boston, MA). Panel: Modernist responses to a "revolutionary' predicament in Ukraine. Presentation title: “Continuity in Disruption: Post-1991 Ukrainian Literature and its Soviet Heritage.”

November 2012: Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (Seattle, WA). Panel: Contemporary Ukrainian Literature. Presentation topic: “The Old Face of the New Ukrainian Literature: Lina Kostenko’s Zapysky ukraïns’koho samašedšoho [Notes of a Ukrainian Madman].”

January 2010: Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (formerly: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies) (Los Angeles, CA). Panel: Sexuality and Ukrainian Literature. Presentation title: “Feminism vs. Patriotism: Oksana Zabužko’s Experiments with «Womb Voice» and Coarse Language.”

Invited Lectures

February 2012, Harvard University: Guest lecture on film adaptations of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, with introduction to tools of text vs. film analysis; frame, composition, and camera technique analysis.

December 2011, Harvard University: Guest lecture on psychology and psychologism in F. Dostoevsky’s works, Freudian interpretations, and stylistic aspects of Dostoevsky’s writing.

March 2010, Shevchenko Scientific Society in America (New York, NY): Invited lecture on Russian travel literature of the late 18^th and early 19^th century and its connection to the work of Taras Shevchenko.

Extracurricular Activities

Oleh is an energetic and engaged member of the Harvard community. Moreover, he is actively involved in building civil society in Ukraine. His extracurricular activities include: 

• Online editor of the Ukrainian intellectual journal "Krytyka" (Kyiv, Ukraine),
• Vice-president (2009-2010) of SUSTA - Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America
• Co-founder and president (2009-2011) of the GSAS Harvard Ukrainian Student Society
• Co-founder (2004) and vice-president (2004-2005) of Association of Ukrainian Students in Germany (Союз українських студентів в Німеччині: www.sus-n.org)
• Conferences and discussion boards on EU – Ukrainian – Russian relations in Germany, Ukraine, and United States.

Publications in Press

Oleh has published in English, German, and Ukrainian on Ukraine in/outside the European Union, Ukrainian cultural politics and international relations from the cultural perspective, political process in Ukraine, education, and scholarship

            In English:

The New York Times, November 30, 2013: “Ukraine’s Battle for Europe” 

            In German:

Die Welt, October 30, 2004: “Vergiftete Nachrichten” (Poisoned News)

            In Ukrainian:

Ukraïns’ka pravda, September 24, 2009: “Фрустрація Солани і фрустрація України” (Javier Solana’s Frustration, and Ukrainian Frustration)

Ukraïns’ka pravda, February 3, 2010: “Adversus solem ne loquitur: Іще про телебати) (Don’t Speak Against the Sun: On the Presidential TV Debates)

Krytyka, September 28, 2010: “Паралельні реальності українсько-европейських стосунків: Урок про европейську ідентичність” (The Parallel Realities of Ukraine-EU Relations: A Lesson in European Identity)

Ukraïns’ka pravda, September 30, 2010: “То що, все таки, сказала баронеса Ештон” (After All, What Did Baroness Ashton Say?) 

Audio podcasts:

With Andrii Kurkov: “I am a Ukrainian writer” (with George G. Grabowicz)

With Sławomir Sierakowski: “Ukrainians are already in Europe, even if Ukraine is not (yet)”

Interviews:

NPR, “Here and Now” with Robin Young, December 4, 2013: “«Tolerasty» vs. «Sovok»: Ukraine’s Battle for Values” 

Chytomo, Ukraine: On the Krytyka Online project, November 2013 

Voice of America, Ukrainian service: An exclusive interview for the Voice of America on the project of a new web platform for Krytyka (www.krytyka.com), May 27, 2011

Oleh has been awarded the following fellowships and grants:

• Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute's Graduate Research Fellowship (Fall 2012, Fall 2013)
• Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute - Summer Research Travel Grants (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013)
• Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies - Maurice Lazarus Graduate Research Travel Awards (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013)
• Thomas C. Rumble Fellowship at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI (2005-2006)
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Fellowship at Gesamthochschule-Universität Kassel, Germany (2000-2001)
• Ministry of Science and Communication, Republic of Austria; Research Fellowship at Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria (1999)