University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
March 31–April 1, 2023
Friday, March 31
2090B Foreign Languages Building
9:00 am Bagels, doughnuts, coffee
9:30-11 Panel 1 The Jewish Experience in Fiction
Chair: Laura Davies-Brenier
Jonathan Parker, “‘You Mean the Goyim Are Our Equals?’ Postcolonial Readings of Ivan Olbracht’s Writings on Subcarpathian Ruthenia, 1931–1937”
Lena Franke, “Jiří Weil's Novel Life with a Star and Its Reception in the Context of Early Czech Shoah Literature”
Discussant: Jindřich Toman
Lunch break
1-3 pm Panel 2 Czech and Slovak Studies in Popular Culture
Chair: Anke Pinkert
Cullan Bendig, “Hussite Video Games and Czech Digital Nationalism”
Tanya Silverman, “FAMU and Film-Pravda: Věra Chytilová and Documentarian Genesis”
Discussant: Hana Waisserová
Coffee break
Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1st floor, Foreign Languages Building
4:30 pm Keynote lecture: Karla Huebner, “Considering Czechoslovak Studies through a Periodical Studies Lens”
6:30 pm Workshop dinner
Saturday, April 1
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
8:30 am Bagels, doughnuts, coffee
9:00-10:30 Panel 3 Turning Points in Czech and Slovak Politics
Chair: Marco Jaimes
Pavel Krejčí, “Czechoslovak Realpolitik and World War II”
Marty Manor Mullins, “The 1998 Slovak Election as Turning Point in Slovak Politics”
Discussant: Carol Leff
10:45-12 Roundtable: “Teaching Czech and Slovak Studies: Strategies and Discoveries for the Place of Small Nations and Regions in Area Studies”
Lunch break
1:30-3 pm Panel 4 Imagining the Homeland at Home and Abroad
Chair: Zsuzsa Gille
Deborah L. Michaels, “Below the Tatra Mountains: Land and the narration of Slovak national identity in school textbooks, 1939-1945”
Anna Herran, “‘Do you remember, dear, President Masaryk?’ Remembering Masaryk in Toronto and the Yugoslav Connection”
Discussant: Marty Manor Mullins
4:30 Event at The Literary, downtown Champaign, Karla Huebner reading (2 new novels: In Search of the Magic Theater and Too Early to Know Who's Winning)
Many thanks to the event's sponsors!
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
European Union Center
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics
Czechoslovak Studies Association
Slovak Studies Association