Close
Recognizing and Addressing Epistemic Injustice
02 October 2023, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Russia’s War against Ukraine and the Challenge to Decolonize Slav(on)ic and East European Studies. A SSEES event with Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
SSEES
Location
-
Room 347Â鶹´«Ã½ÊÓƵÍøÕ¾ School of Slavonic and East European Studies16 Taviton streetLondonWC1H 0BW
If there is a common thread in the world’s reaction to Ukraine’s spirited resistance to Russia’s escalated invasion since February 24, 2022, it is surprise. Ukraine defied expectations, providing numerous examples of dignity under pressure, social initiative and organization, support of the war effort, as well as aid for the displaced and the wounded. The broader international expert community, especially in the West, had to admit that it knew and understood little about Ukraine, had a habit of recycling uncritically absorbed stereotypes and ideological talking points, many of them of Russian imperialist origin, and in its soul-searching had to admit to a history of marginalizing Ukrainian studies and ignoring or dismissing Ukrainian voices. In other words, there was an entrenched pattern of epistemic injustice towards Ukraine. At the same time, the Russian military assault against Ukraine was prepared and accompanied by a campaign of epistemic violence against Ukraine, attacking its integrity and legitimacy and denying its agency. The horrors of this war, in addition to the atrocities perpetrated by the Russian army, revealed deep ethical and intellectual challenges affecting the very essence of academic inquiry in Slav(on)ic and East European Studies. It has also highlighted the need to reassess and reshape the field’s intellectual practices with an impetus to decolonize it in a meaningful and lasting way, and also be wary of superficial token gestures, as well as of attempts to hijack the discourse on decolonization in ways that obfuscate Russia’s imperialist practices. This talk reflects on those challenges and the ways in which our field has been addressing them, sketches out a potential roadmap for the project of confronting and undoing epistemic injustice towards Ukraine, and considers the broader implications of the much-needed process of decolonization through which our field needs to go.
About the Speaker
Vitaly Chernetsky
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of Kansas
VITALY CHERNETSKY is a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007; Ukrainian-language version, 2013) and of articles on modern and contemporary Slavic and East European literatures and cultures where he seeks to highlight cross-regional and cross-disciplinary contexts. A book in Ukrainian, Intersections and Breakthroughs: Ukrainian Literature and Cinema between the Global and the Local, is forthcoming from Krytyka. He co-edited a bilingual anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Letters from Ukraine (2016), and an annotated Ukrainian translation of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (2007), and guest-edited a special issue on Ukraine for the film studies e-journal KinoKultura (2009). His translations into English include Yuri Andrukhovych’s novels The Moscoviad (2008) and Twelve Circles (2015) and a volume of his selected poems, Songs for a Dead Rooster (2018, with Ostap Kin). Translations of Sophia Andrukhovych’s novel Felix Austria and of The Winter King, a poetry collection by Ostap Slyvynsky (with Iryna Shuvalova) are forthcoming. He is a past president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (2009-2018) and the current first vice president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the U.S. Prof. Chernetsky is serving in 2023 as Vice President/President-Elect of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), and will serve as its president in 2024.