"Understanding the Escalation of the War Between Russia and Ukraine" is the topic for the OLLI Lecture Series set for 4 to 5 p.m. Friday, March 18, via Zoom. The presentation features Yuliya Ladygina, Helena Rubinstein University Endowed Fellow in the Humanities and an assistant professor of Russian and Global Studies at Penn State.
“Understanding the Escalation of the War Between Russia and Ukraine” is the topic of of a presentation from 4 to 5 p.m. Friday, March 18, via Zoom. The presentation features Yuliya Ladygina, a Helena Rubinstein University endowed fellow in the humanities and assistant professor of Russian and global studies at Penn State.
The free presentation is made possible by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Penn State York as part of their OLLI Lecture Series. The program is open to all Penn State faculty, staff and students, as well as the York County community, but registration is required. Register here. This is OLLI’s fifth lecture in the series which focuses on timely topics of interest.
“The OLLI Lecture Series was an idea of OLLI members Beth Gill-MacDonald and Sharon Christ. Our goal is to have one presentation each quarter and to choose topics that may not have been relevant when planning the current semester since our semester production works six to nine months in advance,” said Jennifer Geubtner- May. director of OLLI at Penn State York. She also noted that the free series is a way to introduce people to OLLI.
To choose a topic, Christ, Geubtner-May, and MacDonald brainstorm current events that they believe OLLI members, as well as the York County community, would like to know more about from an expert in that field. The presentation on Russia and Ukraine was planned prior to the war breaking out.
About the speaker
Ladygina will share information to provide a better understanding of the war happening in Ukraine. Her research in Eastern European literatures and cultures focuses on questions of cultural memory and cultural exchange. Her monograph, ”Bridging East and West: Ol’ha Kobylians’ka, Ukraine’s Pioneering Modernist,” (University of Toronto Press, 2019) stands out among her many published articles, reviews, conference presentations, and translations of Ukrainian literature into English. She is working on her second book project, “The Reel Story of the Euromaidan and the Russian-Ukrainian War,” which examines the post 2014 cycle of Ukrainian war films and their original perspective on the hybrid nature of modern war and its mediatization.
Prior to joining Penn State, Ladygina was a research fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, a visiting professor of Russian at Williams College, and a teaching professor of Russian and the humanities at the University of the South (Sewanee) where she taught courses in Russian and comparative literature, film, rhetorical writing, Russian language, and the 19th- and 20th-century European and Russian intellectual history. At Sewanee, she has also served as a director of the Sewanee Summer in Russia Program.
OLLI at Penn State York
OLLI at Penn State York boasts more than 500 members who have a desire to stay active and never stop learning. OLLI came to Penn State York in 2007, thanks to the efforts of three women — Olive Padden and the late Charmaine Kissinger and Gussie Petron — and their thirst for knowledge and mental stimulation
The idea of offering courses of interest during the day for adult learners without the stress of tests, requirements and official textbooks appealed to the trio, and thanks to their leadership, OLLI began offering courses in April 2008. Since that time, OLLI at Penn State York has continued to grow with a variety of daytime courses, bus trips, travel trips, walking tours and other exciting activities. length of the course.
Annual membership in OLLI is $50 and members pay $8 for a single-session course; $16 for a two-session course, and so on. Nonmembers pay $20 for a single-session course; $40 for a two-session course, etc. Some courses are open to nonmembers and prices vary based on the length of the course.
OLLI is a nonprofit, mostly volunteer-driven organization, established to enrich the lives of mature adults living in York County. OLLI at Penn State York is one of more than 124 lifelong learning institutes across the nation that is supported by a grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation. The grant was made available locally through Penn State, which has OLLI sites at its University Park and York campuses.
For more information about OLLI, call 717-771-4015 or visit the OLLI York website.
