Conference in San Diego

Liliya Dashevski is a Graduate student in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. She received her M.A in the History of Art department in the University of Haifa, Israel, where she wrote her thesis on Mikhail Vrubel’s art. She is currently interested in two projects: Russia’s childhood material culture of the 19th century, and Russian speaking culture in Israel.

I traveled to San Diego in February 2020 to attend the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages conference. I presented my work on the New Barbizon, a group of five contemporary Israeli painters who emigrated from the Former Soviet Union to Israel. In my presentation, I examined the perception of painters in Israel and argued that Israel’s problematic Socialist-Realist past affected how the Israeli art establishment viewed their art.

My presentation was part of a panel I co-organized with Liana Battsaligova on the reinvention of socialist-realism in the age of capitalism. The panel also featured Maria Engstrom’s (University of Uppsala) presentation on the New Academy and the concept of Meta- Modernism. Our chair and discussion leader, Jason Cieply (Hamilton College), did an excellent job of tying together the various presentations and recommending future research directions.

In addition to presenting my own work, I was able to attend various talks and learn about exciting research conducted by distinguished scholars. I particularly enjoyed Galin Tihanov’s, Berry Scherr’s, and Michael Wachtel’s presentations. Lastly, I participated in graduate student workshops, including a publishing roundtable.