Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
REEEC at Illinois
The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center is home to a wide variety of programs for members of the university community and the general public designed to expand understanding of and promote knowledge about Russia, and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. REEEC receives major support for programming and FLAS fellowships through the U.S. Department of Education through its Title VI program, for which REEEC serves as a designated National Resource Center.
Featured News
- As a result of World War II, the newly founded socialist Polish state faced unprecedented changes in economic, social, and political life. Against the backdrop of the need for reconstruction, forced industrialization, and the establishment of a new socialist statehood, the narrative of “social... Read full story REEEC Summer Research Laboratory Fisher Fellow Talk: Laura-Clarissa Loew, “Not ‘from Dishwasher to Millionaire’, but ‘from Peasant to Farmer’: the Politics and Narratives of Social Advancement in the Polish People’s Republic”
- Open Research Laboratory and Summer Research Laboratory alumni publish articles, book chapters, and monographs that help shape the field of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Find below the 2023 publications that have resulted from research conducted at the Research Labs:... Read full story 2024 Summer Research Laboratory Alumni Publications
- REEEC at the University of Illinois congratulates REEES Major David Mock on receiving the 2025 Illinois International Undergraduate Achievement Award! This award is given each year by Illinois International... Read full story Congratulations to David Mock for receiving Undergraduate Achievement Award!
M.A. REEES/M.S. LIS Student Spotlight: Joseph Mosse'
Joseph Mosse' is a first-year student in the dual M. A. Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and M. S. in Information and Library Science. He was born in Fullerton, California, but grew up in Ukraine, mostly in Odessa. He received his B.A. in Social Studies Education, with concentrations in Historical Perspectives and Government and Citizenship from Taylor University in Indiana and taught High School Social Studies for four years. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Joseph moved from teaching to humanitarian aid work in Europe and the United States....
More News
- 2025-02-13 - In October 2024, the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) hosted three Ukrainian scholars as part of the BridgeUSA Ukrainian Academic Fellows Program (UAFP). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and administered by American Councils for International Education, the program offers Ukrainian scholars the...
- 2025-02-06 - REEEC at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to welcome two new Nonresidential Fellows from Ukraine to our campus community: Oleh Bahmet and Vladyslava Moskalets. These two scholars join our community in the Spring 2025 semester as part of the IU-Ukraine Nonresidential Scholar Program (NRSP). Vladyslava Moskalets is a researcher at the...
2024-11-15 - We're very pleased to announce that Dr. Markian Dobczansky will become the new Associate Director of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at Illinois, starting on November 18th. Dr. Dobczansky is an experienced researcher, teacher, and administrator who has broad intellectual interests and has lived and worked in many states across the REEES region. A historian by training, he earned...
GLBL 499: Research Design and Writing for Global Studies Students
This practical course will take students through the process of writing up area and global studies research with the goal of making significant progress on a major piece of academic writing, such as a thesis or research paper. In the first half of the course, students will learn about the main elements of academic published work (such as topics and questions, backgrounds and literature review, and methods) while generating their own questions, arguments, and bibliographies and planning out their written project. The second half of the course is dedicated to getting to work on writing and learning techniques to communicate effectively and efficiently in writing. Through weekly assignments, discussions, editing, critiques, and revisions, students will sharpen their ability to write with clarity while making progress on their own written research project. This course is open to students in African Studies; European Union Studies; Global Studies; Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; and South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
SLAV 452/CWL 453: Slavic Cultural Studies - Kyiv: Biography of a City
This course traces the historical, social, and artistic development of Kyiv as a city and as an idea from the medieval period to the present day. As we read a variety of literary works and watch several films in which Kyiv figures prominently, we will think about what makes up this city’s “text” and pay special attention to its frequently competing Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Jewish versions. The course is conducted in English, and all the texts will be available in English translations.
REES 550/495: Seminar in REEE Studies
Interdisciplinary seminar normally taken in the senior year. Involving faculty in a number of disciplines, this course approaches understanding Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia and the methodologies of its study through questions of identities, cultural values, and change.
RUSS 260: Medicine & Russian Literature
Examines cultural significance of medicine and the figure of the physician, and understandings of illness and health, primarily in literature of Russia and the USSR from the 1860s to present. Asks what larger issues are at stake in the literary representation of medical practice by physicians and non-physicians alike in the Russian and Soviet contexts; investigates what medicine and literature offer each other, and the bearing on this of the latter's formal, aesthetic qualities. Considers how medical practice is conditioned by the broader culture, how medical discourse, knowingly or unknowingly, 'borrows' from, is conditioned by, or otherwise reciprocally involved with other greater or peripheral discursive spheres. Reads fiction by leading literary figures who were physicians (Chekhov, Bulgakov, Veresaev, and Aksyonov); fiction by "lay" authors about doctors and medical practice (such as Solzhenitsyn); memoirs by physicians (tales of training and practice, apologies, denunciations); memoirs by patients; 'real' and fictional case histories; theoretical and methodological readings.