Slavic Department Graduate Students Grace Mahoney and Haley Laurila will present their work related to Ukraine.

Grace Mahoney: "A Field of Foundlings: Collected Memory in the Poetry of Iryna Starovoit"
I will be speaking about Starovoit as a poet who considers history through the lens of collective memory and the present through the echoes of the past. She is also the poet I translate, and my manuscript has been accepted for publication at Lost Horse Press as part of their forth-coming series on contemporary Ukrainian poetry. In light of this good news, I am excited to present Iryna's poetry to our colleagues here and also take the opportunity to discuss the contemporary Ukrainian poetry scene and translation, in general.

Haley Laurila: “Forgetting to Remember: Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone as Memorial Space.”
This paper will look at the three primary memorials located within the exclusion zone and examine the ways in which they interact with each other in this space of memory to produce a singular narrative of this disaster, one of containment. This narrative of containment is predicated on forgetting certain aspects of the disaster’s consequences, and because of this, does not reflect the contemporary discussions and current concerns facing the communities most affected by this catastrophe. Additionally, owing to the exclusion zone’s unique status as a highly-regulated museum of sorts, I will look at the role that tourism plays in the ways in which the memory of Chernobyl is communicated.

This will be a colloquium in our usual format, starting with a light supper followed by the presentations and open-ended discussion.

If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please contact Carolyn Dymond (dymond@umich.edu or 734.764.5355) at least 4 days in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the University to arrange.