About the Authors

© 2002 by Eloise M. Boyle and Genevra Gerhart. All rights reserved.

 

Eloise M. Boyle (M.A., Ph.D. Ohio State University), who began her study of Russian in the German and Russian Department at the University of Vermont, is a Lecturer in Russian language and language program coordinator for the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. She has taught at the Ohio State University, the Defense Language Institute, and Ohio University. She has published in the areas of Russian literature and culture, and pedagogy.

William J. Comer is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Director of the Ermal Garinger Academic Resource Center at the University of Kansas. Receiving a BA degree in Russian from Middlebury College in 1984, he was awarded the doctoral degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1992. Between 1982&endash;96 he spent five extensive periods of study and research in Russia. At Kansas he regularly teaches courses in Russian language, Russian culture, and the methods of teaching Russian, and his research interests include the use of computer technology in language teaching, content-based instruction, and the interactions of Russian religious and literary cultures at the turn of the twentieth century. His articles "How do Dzhon and Dzhein Read Russian? On-Line Vocabulary and its Place in the Reading Process" (with Leann Keefe) and "Making Our Way toward Teacher Education Programs in the Slavic Languages" have appeared in the recent volume The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures: Towards the 21st Century (Slavica, 2000).

Thomas J. Garza is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Russian Language Coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary research interests are in foreign language teaching and pedagogy, and contemporary Russian popular culture. He teaches a course on the history of Russian rock music and its impact on the politics and society in the major cities. He is currently co-authoring two textbooks with Russian writing teams, one for advanced Russian language and culture, the other an intermediate level follow up to Breakthrough! American English for Speakers of Russian, which he co-authored in 1995.

Genevra Gerhart writes: Some people are so intrigued by Russian, the people and the language, that they find it difficult to occupy themselves with something at least more lucrative if not more reasonable. I am one of those beleaguered who has not stopped struggling since the first Russian class in the summer of '48. Canwell committee and all. Ever since my first teaching job was relegated to graduate students, I have amused myself by collecting information all Russians seemed to have and most language students didn't. I am very grateful to the writers who contributed to the job, and eternally grateful to Eloise Boyle, the co-editor, for keeping us on an even keel despite over-heated winds of fate. My participation in this effort and the supplies it required were totally financed by my husband, James B. Gerhart, a now retired professor of physics at the University of Washington. He deserves considerable gratitude from the profession for his contribution.

Lawrence Mansour is an assistant professor of Russian language and culture at the US Military Academy, West Point, where in any one year, citizens will be happy to know, there are still upwards of a hundred cadets studying Russian. He has taught Russian literature and language at Dickinson College, Old Dominion University and University of Maryland-College Park. Among his interests: current events in Russia and Kazakhstan; nineteenth century Russian letters, literary criticism and intellectual culture; English and Polish poetry; language pedagogy; and wood lore.

Alexander Prokhorov is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. His dissertation is entitled "Tropes of Soviet Culture in Literature and Film of the Thaw." His interests are 20th and 21st century Russian film, literature and culture.

Ludmila A. Pruner (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, 1983) Russian Literature. Native Speaker of Russian completed her M.A. in Russian Philology and Spanish Language at Moscow Friendship University, Russia. Taught Russian Language and Literature in Paris, France and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Taught Russian and Spanish Languages and Russian Literature and Civilization at University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Conducted Seminars on Russian Cinema of the 1960s through 1990s at the Summer Research Lab at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Author of numerous Computer Assisted Programs in Spanish and Russian based on Authentic Television Programs, at USNA Interactive Video Project (1992 National Award). Author of numerous articles on contemporary Russian cinema of the 1960s through 1990s published in the U.S. and abroad. Currently lives in New England and continues her research on Russian Cinema and Civilization.

Robert A. Rothstein is professor of Slavic and Judaic Studies and of Comparative Literature and adjunct professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the program in Slavic and East European Studies. He has published widely in the areas of Slavic and Yiddish linguistics, folklore, cultural history and music.

Halina Weiss, an independent scholar living in Amherst, Massachusetts, has written about Russian and Polish literature (including children's literature), folklore and culinary history.

James West is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington. He studied Russian at London University during national service in the Royal Air Force, then Russian, French and German at Cambridge University, and his doctoral studies included a period at Leningrad State University, where his adviser was D.E. Maksimov. His publications are on the culture and philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (particularly Viacheslav Ivanov and Andrei Bely) and the early nineteenth century in Russia. His research interests focus on the interactions of different realms of discourse -- literature, philosophy, the visual arts, and music -- in Russia and Europe, including some of Russia's non-Russian cultures. He is currently completing books on the origin and persistence of visual images in Russian culture, and the "Russian Idea," the national component of Russian philosophy between the 1880s and 1930s. Besides courses on modern Russian culture, he teaches advanced written comprehension and translation courses for fourth-year and graduate students, for whom an understanding of the cultural context of the Russian language is crucial.

Olga T. Yokoyama (Ph.D. 1979, Harvard University) teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA. Her publications are primarily in the field of Russian linguistics. Her interest in Russian proverbs goes back to her childhood: her mother used many Russian proverbs in her own speech, and her father, who learned Russian as an adult, became a connoisseur of Russian proverbs. (His ambition to write a book comparing Japanese, Chinese, and Russian proverbs was unfortunately never realized, although he took extensive notes on the subject.) Yokoyama's interest in science is related to her earlier training in natural sciences. For publications and other professional details, see: <http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/html/f-yokoyama.html>.

Valentina Zaitseva (Ph.D. in Slavic Linguistics, Harvard University). Born in Sochi, a popular resort town in the sub-tropical part of Russia near the Black Sea. Presently lives in New York City with her two bilingual teenage children (Maria and Yuri Gitin) and her third husband, a historian. Zaitseva studied Russian literature and language first in Leningrad at Herzen Pedagogical University, then after emigrating to the USA, at Norwich University Russian Summer School and at Harvard. For many years taught Russian language, literature and culture at Harvard, SUNY Albany, Norwich, and presently works at New York University. Research interests: interaction between language, culture and communication; national identity and cultural stereotypes; gender linguistics and foreign language acquisition. Zaitseva is the author of the book The Speaker's Point of View in Grammar and Lexicon and a number of articles published in professional journals and monographs.

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