Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

From Source And Summit To Parish Practice: A Qualitative Analysis Of Eucharist And Social Outreach, Erik Sorensen S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

A small-scale qualitative study in a Catholic parish situated in Ottawa, Canada,

offers insights into the complex relationship between that community’s worship

and its commitment to social justice. This article brings the lived theology of

this community into dialogue with the academic and magisterial perspectives

on the Eucharist as the source and summit of Christian life. The dialogue is

framed by the Theological Action Research Network’s four voices of theology:

operant, espoused, formal, and normative. This framework helps to center the

marginalized theology of the faithful in the pews. In this case, the parish of-

fered a dynamic theology of …

“Ite Missa Est”: How Can The Altar Alter Attitudes And Actions?, Ebenezer Akesseh

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper brings into focus the relationship between personal agency and so-

cial structure, demonstrating that what we celebrate on the altar forms within

us the proper dispositions that can help prevent the occurrence of corruption.

The first part examines corruption from a socio-cultural perspective and ex-

plains the incidence and effects of corruption. The second part discusses the

relationship between worship and the formation of actions and attitudes. It

highlights the need to embody the social implications of our celebrations. Using

responses from interviewees, the third part illustrates that the celebration of the

Eucharist shapes the commitments and conduct …

The Lived Liturgical Experience Of Non-Catholic Participants In The Roman Catholic Mass: Tactical Ecumenism In Overlapping Ritual Systems, Sarah Johnson

Journal of Global Catholicism

In religiously diverse social contexts, liturgical practices anchored in one reli-

gious tradition often gather diverse communities. In such contexts, it is wise to

assume that people who are not Catholic may be present at any Roman Cath-

olic Mass. This article explores the lived liturgical experience of non-Catholic

Christians who participate routinely in the Roman Catholic Mass through a

mixed-methods study of a religiously diverse treble vocal ensemble that sings

weekly at Mass on a Catholic university campus. It describes how Catholic and

non-Catholic Christian singers interpret practices surrounding the eucharistic

meal in contrasting ways: non-Catholic Christians experience the …

La Santa Muerte And The Characteristic Damage Of Canonization, Ellen Webber

Journal of Global Catholicism

Devotion to La Santa Muerte, a Mexican folk saint who personifies Death, has

been condemned by the Catholic Church for its affiliation with Mexican drug

cartels. This article challenges mainstream interpretations of La Santa Muerte

devotion using the theological framework of characteristic damage, as defined

by Lauren Winner and Paul J. Griffiths. This framework understands liturgy

as celebrated by sinners in a damaged world, and therefore necessarily damaged

itself. As much as liturgy and Christian practice form us for good, they also per-

petuate damage. I argue that the sins present in La Santa Muerte veneration are

an expression of …

Negotiating Plurality: Korean Catholic Funerals As Lived Religion, Jieun Han

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines Korean Catholic funeral rites through the lenses of ritual

guidebooks and lived religion, arguing that Catholic funerary practice in Korea

has emerged through sustained engagement with Confucian and Buddhist tradi-

tions as well as modern nationalism. Focusing on Catholic manuals such as the

Sangjang yesik [Rites for Mourning and Funerals] and related texts, it traces how

officially sanctioned liturgical forms coexist with, accommodate, and reinterpret

indigenous ritual logics surrounding mourning, burial, ancestor veneration, and

care for the dead. Rather than viewing Korean Catholic funerals as a simple

localization of Roman rites, the article conceptualizes them as a …

Editor's Introduction, Brent H. Otto S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Folk Narratives Of “The Wandering Jew” (Atu 777) In Latvian Folklore, Svetlana Pogodina

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This essay reports field-collected texts of “The Wandering Jew” (ATU 777) recorded in the twentieth century in Latvia to determine if they are distinctive within the global tradition of the folk narrative. The Archives of Latvian Folklore (Latviešu folkloras krātuve) collection contains versions of the narrative recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. These texts have not previously been published in English translation. An interpretation is made that the narratives borrow elements from Jewish stereotypes that exist in a local folklore tradition. Comparing the Latvian material to the European and Slavic versions of the story of the Eternal Jew, a major …

Hindu Poetry And The Project Of An Inter-Spiritual Catholic Theology, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article engages the work of the Indian south Indian Tamil-language Vaiṣṇava poet saints known as the Alvārs. The article specifically focuses the First HundredHoly Linked verses of Poykai Ālvār to argue for inter-spiritual learning between Catholics and Hindus. The article concludes with personal reflections on this encounter within the context of the global Catholic Church

Small Nations, Big Debates: Empowering The Slovenes As A Subject Of World History In The Critical 1930s, Marko Juvan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article looks at how Slovene intellectuals and writers in the 1930s attempted to redefine the role of a small nation within the world-system in the face of global economic crisis, authoritarianism, imperialism, and the threat of fascist expansion. Three central interventions are examined in detail: firstly, Josip Vidmar’s culturalist defense of Slovenia as a nation defined by its intellectual and artistic achievements, which is contrasted with Edvard Kardelj’s Marxist reinterpretation of the Slovene national question as part of a broader anti-imperialist struggle; secondly, Anton Ocvirk’s peripheral model of comparative literary history, which emphasizes the creative contribution of small literatures …

Navigating The Future: Language Learning, Career Readiness, And Professional Identity, Maria Shardakova, Rebecca Cravens

Russian Language Journal

The decline in Russian language enrollments reflects a broader trend of diminishing confidence in higher education, particularly in the humanities and language studies. Many Americans question whether an undergraduate degree effectively prepares students for meaningful careers, fueling skepticism about the value of language programs. Meanwhile, the job market has undergone significant shifts, with fewer lifelong careers and more frequent job transitions. In this evolving landscape, graduates must develop not only professional skills but also career management skills, including the ability to envision career paths, articulate their qualifications to employers, and construct compelling professional narratives.This longitudinal study examines the effectiveness of …

An Integrative Approach To Professionalizing Russian Language Learning And Teaching, Victoria Hasko, Olga Thomason, Alexandra Shapiro

Russian Language Journal

This article proposes an integrative framework for embedding career readiness into advanced Russian language teaching. Drawing on the experience of a U.S. Russian Flagship Program, the authors argue that career readiness requires deliberate programmatic choices: a proficiency level sufficient for meaningful disciplinary engagement and study abroad immersion; a flexible open-architecture curriculum that admits interdisciplinarity into the core of the program; faculty preparation that makes embedded career advising possible; and institutional partnerships that give language work standing in professional contexts. Framed through the Connections standard of the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, the article positions interdisciplinary engagement not as an enrichment …

Redesigning Our Curricula To Foster Career Readiness, Benjamin Rifkin

Russian Language Journal

Undergraduate majors are not engraved in stone; curricula have been adjusted and changed over the course of the history of higher education and now is the time to change our curricula once again. This article proposes a reconceptualization of the undergraduate major in Russian away from the framework of “coverage of the humanistic canon” to a framework focusing on the development of transferable or durable skills, i.e., skills that can be deployed in numerous employment contexts throughout an individual’s career trajectory to support career-readiness, in accordance with powerful frameworks offered by prominent educational organizations. This approach helps us support the …

Workforce Readiness And The Humanities: Building Internship Pathways In Slavic And East European Studies, Ani Kokobobo

Russian Language Journal

As workforce readiness becomes an increasingly central metric for evaluating academic programs, humanities disciplines, particularly small language and area studies fields such as Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (SEEES), face growing pressure to demonstrate measurable employment outcomes. Drawing on national and state-level workforce policy frameworks, employer competency data, and the author’s administrative experience as Dean of Liberal Arts, this article argues that SEEES programs are uniquely positioned to meet contemporary career readiness mandates without compromising their intellectual and civic missions. The article reframes SEEES not as an at-risk humanities field, but as a high-value incubator of precisely the competencies …

Russian As A Lingua Franca In A Security Cooperation Context: Designing Career-Oriented Language Training Programs, Daniel Medford

Russian Language Journal

As Slavic language programs seek to align their curricula with workforce needs, the role of Russian and other Slavic languages in military and government service presents unique challenges and opportunities. This paper examines how linguistic training, particularly in Russian, can be better structured for students at American universities and colleges who wish to pursue government and security-related careers. Drawing on 30 interviews with native and non-native Russian speakers serving in the U.S. Army, this study explores the implications of using Russian as a lingua franca for U.S. military cooperation with former Soviet states. Given the political sensitivities surrounding the Russian …

Russian Language In An Interdisciplinary Setting: A Case Study, Foreign Area Studies At The United States Naval Academy, Joan Chevalier

Russian Language Journal

Russian language enrollments have been dropping in recent years at colleges and universities in the United States. In contrast to this national trend, the number of students studying Russian language at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) has remained robust over the past decade and is poised to increase in the near future as a relatively new interdisciplinary major, Foreign Area Studies (FAS), is expanded and revised. This paper traces recent developments at USNA that have led to the development and expansion of Foreign Area Studies, integrating language study into an interdisciplinary curriculum featuring courses related to nations and cultures …

Building An Alumni Network: Strategies And Benefits, Emily Johnson, Elena Carmichael

Russian Language Journal

This article explains how to build an alumni network and describes the benefits of such initiatives. Echoing the 2024 “Report on English Majors’ Career Preparation and Outcomes” prepared by the ADE Ad Hoc Committee on English Majors’ Career Preparation and Outcomes, it argues that providing students with regular opportunities to hear from and interact with program alumni offers tangible benefits in terms of career preparation. By attending Zoom and in-person alumni career talks, students can learn about the diverse range of jobs where language and literature majors can achieve success. The chance to speak one-on-one with an alumnus/alumna with similar …

Spotlight: Resources For Listening Proficiency In Russian, Molly Godwin-Jones

Russian Language Journal

The Digital Resources Corner (DRC) offers reviews of new digital resources that could be beneficial in the teaching and/or learning of Slavic languages. It is intended for instructors looking for or evaluating different materials to use in the classroom.

Book Review: Dynamic Teaching Of Russian: Games And Gamification Of Learning., Olesia Hubrich

Russian Language Journal

This review examines Dynamic Teaching of Russian: Games and Gamification of Learning, a collection of empirically grounded case studies on integrating games and creative activities into tertiary-level L2 Russian language instruction. The volume highlights the pedagogical value of gamified, student-centered approaches in enhancing linguistic proficiency and affective factors such as motivation, confidence, and engagement. While offering a wide range of innovative teaching practices, the volume also identifies gaps in research, particularly regarding game-based learning and diverse learner populations. Overall, the book is presented as a valuable resource for instructors and researchers seeking to incorporate play and gamification into Russian as …

Russian For The Professions: Creating An M.A. Program In The Context Of Holistic Foreign Language Instruction, Angela Brintlinger, Andrei Cretu, Helen Myers, Emma Pratt, Larysa Stepanova

Russian Language Journal

This paper presents the design, implementation, and some preliminary outcomes of measures aiming at integrating career readiness into the Russian language program at Ohio State University through the creation of a “Russian for the Professions” (RFP) stand-alone M.A. degree. While the M.A. program is still relatively small, its courses serve a larger contingent of students who have achieved or aspire to higher language competency. The key component of the program comprises courses offering specialized language skills in business, cybersecurity, government and foreign affairs, information services, media, and translation. Career-focused curricular offerings are supplemented by programming offered in partnership with industry …

What Do Learners Do With A Foreign Language After Their Studies? A Survey Of Alumni Of A Russian Summer Immersion Program, Dmitrii Pastushenkov, Liya Zalaltdinova, Jason Merrill

Russian Language Journal

Responding to concerns about the long-term value of foreign language education, this exploratory survey-based study examines how Russian language learners (N = 321) continued to use the language after completing a summer immersion program. The study investigates language use in personal and professional contexts and identifies resources alumni used, recommended, and needed to maintain proficiency. Although opportunities for conversational practice were limited, and interaction in Russian was one of the activities alumni needed but often viewed as unattainable, about 60% of participants continued using Russian at least occasionally. Among those employed full time, 24% used Russian frequently, primarily in …

Russian Linguistic Policy In The Post-Soviet World, Payton G. Deichler

The Dialogue

This paper examines the role of the Russian language as an instrument of soft power in the post-Soviet space, arguing that its geopolitical influence extends beyond demographic prevalence to the institutional frameworks through which it is promoted and mediated. Rather than functioning solely as a neutral medium of communication, Russian operates as an infrastructural component of influence that shapes access to media ecosystems, educational systems, and professional mobility across former Soviet republics. Drawing on the concept of a “Monopoly of Interpretation,” this study proposes that the centralized, state-linked promotion of Russian enables the consolidation of political narratives within shared linguistic …

The Secret Of Smerdyakov, Abigail M. Munzar

Global Tides

This paper analyzes the mysterious character of Pavel Smerdyakov from Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, by examining his loveless upbringing, motives for murdering Fyodor Karamazov, and his final conversations with Ivan Karamazov, to argue that Smerdyakov committed suicide out of guilt from his crime. Smerdyakov may have had a potential conversion to Christianity which would have triggered an identity crisis in which he was tormented between accepting Christ’s love and hanging on to his lifelong hatred. Thus, he would have committed suicide out of remorse from his sin like the biblical Judas and an inability to choose between conversion or …

“Enslavement By Unbridled Passions:” Catholic Magisterial Institutional Attitudes Toward Homosexuals In Poland Between 1945 And 1989, Agnieszka Laddach

Journal of Global Catholicism

During Communism, the Polish bishops presented a narrative about (homo)sexuality with in order to create the image of a righteous moral and social life that was to influence the Catholics. In my research I conduced a thematic analysis of this narrative. I highlight the doctrinal and Polish social-religious context to foreground tendencies in the formation of Church teaching about homosexuality as well as the importance of the Church in Poland to its formation. Then, I show the factors that characterize the episcopal discourse’s content and language about homosexuality, recognizing that components of episcopal discourse suggest a specificity of Church potential …

Overview & Acknowledgments, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This Introduction overviews the work of contributors from the Graduate Symposium sponsored by the Journal of Global Catholicism and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.  The Introduction also highlights the independent peer reviewed submission from Dr. Agnieszka Laddach of the University of Warsaw.

A Feminine Flame In The Midst Of Repression: The Concealed Role Of Women In The Isolated Siberian Tundra, Jenny N. Liang

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

The modern Russian state is distinctive in her history of utilizing the isolated Siberian tundra for eliminating political dissent, with millions of dissidents disappearing into penal colonies, labor camps, and gulags, some never to reappear. Of the incomprehensible mass of numbers are the stories of steadfast wives refusing to abandon their husbands, women surviving the brutal political prison camps, and girls manipulated as political pawns into Siberia. In a historically patriarchal Slavic society, the stories of women have been conveniently pushed aside. The distinctive Russian practice of exiling political dissidents to the remote Siberian tundra has led to stories of …

Dwelling In Parallel Worlds: Esoteric And New Age Milieus In The Soviet Period And Afterward, Edited By Birgit Menzel And Anna Tessman: A Review, Alexander John Paul Lutz

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

A review of Birgit Menzel and Anna Tessmann, eds. Dwelling in Parallel Worlds: Esoteric and New Age Milieus in the Soviet Period and Afterward. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2025. 320 pp. €34.90 (paperback). ISBN: 978-3-643-91580-1.

Religious And Cultural Dimension Of The "Ringing Cedars Of Russia" Movement In The Context Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Lukyanenko, Vitaly Dmytrenko, Vita Dmytrenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to a comprehensive religious analysis of the neo-religious movement “The Ringing Cedars of Russia,” based on the works of Vladimir Megre and the image of the prophetess Anastasia. The study covers the ideological and doctrinal foundations of the movement, its socio-cultural practices, the functioning of tribal settlements, as well as mechanisms of influence on individual and collective consciousness. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of “Vedrussia”, the sacralization of “Russian space” and the mythologization of Russia’s calling to revive the “primitive civilization of harmony.” The analysis shows that the movement, while declaring ecological and humanistic …

Perspectives Of Russian Language Educators On Meeting The Needs Of Heritage And L2 Learners In Mixed Classes, Maria Goebert

Russian Language Journal

In less commonly taught languages, such as Russian, heritage and non-heritage learners often share the same classes. Teachers in these settings must differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs of their students. Online teaching adds an additional layer of complexity that instructors must address in their course design. This qualitative study explores the perspectives of 12 Russian language educators, working across various educational settings, on the language learning needs of heritage and non-heritage learners in mixed classes. It examines how these teachers adapt their instruction to support their students and meet the demands of different teaching modalities. The study also …

Dynamic And Stable Motivation Patterns In Intensive Second Language Learning: Insights From A Russian Summer Immersion Program, Dmitrii Pastushenkov

Russian Language Journal

Understanding what shapes student motivation is essential to improving second language (L2) programs. While motivation is among the widely studied individual differences (IDs) in second language acquisition (SLA), research has largely focused on commonly taught languages, limiting broader applicability. This mixed-methods study, grounded in Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), explores the motivational development of learners studying a less commonly taught language (LCTL), Russian, during an eight-week summer immersion program. Data were collected from 52 students across four instructional levels. Motivation was assessed through two brief online surveys, developed based on research by Gardner, Dörnyei, Lanvers, Thompson, and others, and administered during …

Spotlight: Resources For Ukrainian, Margaret Godwin-Jones

Russian Language Journal

The Digital Resources Corner (DRC) offers reviews of new digital resources that could be beneficial in the teaching and/or learning of Slavic languages. It is intended for instructors looking for or evaluating different materials to use in the classroom.