rofessor Madhu Malik is a native of New Delhi, India. She received her BA and MA in Russian Language and Literature from the Jawaharlal Nehru University there and her PhD in Slavic Folklore from the University of Virginia in 1982. From 1974 to 1976 she studied at Moscow University where she coauthored a monograph in Russian, Translation as an Aspect of Foreign Language Study. She has also worked for Radio Moscow and as a translator and announcer for the Russian service of the All India Radio. She has produced shows for both Radio Moscow and All India Radio.

Professor Malik has published articles on the writings of Nikolai Gogol, the Russian folk singer Vladimir Vysotski, The Wizard of Oz, and has given many talks on the topics related to folklore and communcations at professional meetings around the world. She has also published a book entitled Traditional Forms of Communication and the Mass Media in India.

Professor Malik's courses range from examinations of cartoons for folkloric content to a popular survey of Russian civilization. She particularly enjoys examining Russian 'pop culture' for clues to the Russian mind. Her course Russian Guitar Music examines Russian culture through the popular folk music in Russia from the '60's on. She also teaches about women in Russian culture, folklore and ritual, and two survey courses of Russian literature in translation, RU 250 and RU 255.

In addition to past service as director of the Bucknell Russian Studies Program, Professor Malik has frequently served as the director of Bucknell's Race and Gender Center.

rofessor Slava Yastremski was born in and grew up in Moscow. He graduated from the Department of Theater History and Dramatic Literature of the Moscow State Theatrical Institute. Professor Yastremski worked at the Taganka Theater, wrote for the newspaper Izvestia, and also worked in Russian television and motion pictures as an assistant director.

Professor Yastremski and his family immigrated to the United States in 1975. In 1981 he received his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Kansas and went to work at Yale. During his 9 years a Yale Univesity, he served as coordinator of Russian language instruction. He taught and produced plays at Middlebury's Russian Summer School for 7 years. His production of Nikolai Erdman's dark comedy The Suicide at Middlebury was the premier of the play in the Russian language. Professor Yastremski joined the Bucknell faculty in 1990 and in 1995 he became chair of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.

One of the main goals of Professor Yastremski's research is to bring Russian literature and culture to a broad array of US audiences. He has published several successful translations of works by prominent Soviet writers and poets: a collection of Vasily Aksyonov's stories Surplussed Barrelware, a collection of Marina Tsvetaeva's poetry, After Russia, and, most recently, Andrei Sinyanski's controversial book Strolls with Pushkin. Professor Yastremski received Columbia University's Translation Center Award and AATSEEL's Best Translation of the Year award for his most recent effort. In addition to his translations, Professor Yastremski has published more than 25 articles in Izvestia plus several scholarly articles on Russian poets and writers, and on popular culture (for example, 'A Cosmonaut Meets Superman: The Myth of the Soviet Positive Hero in the 1980's').

Professor Yastremski also teaches a wide range of Russian courses: Russian theatre, Russian cinema, and business Russian. Perhaps his most exciting courses are his sister courses on the history of Russian culture, RU 301 and RU 302, for which he wrote the textbooks himself.

rofessor James Lavine came to Bucknell in the fall of 2001. He fills the position in Theoretical Linguistics and Russian Language left vacant by Prof. Robert Beard's retirement.

Professor Lavine completed a joint Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics and Slavic Languages from Princeton University in 2000. He also holds an MA in Russian Area Studies from Harvard University (1992).

Professor Lavine's research focuses on the syntax and morphology of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech. He has published in the Journal of Slavic Linguistics, the Generative Linguisitics in Poland series, the Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, and the Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics. He is currently a guest-editor for the Journal of Slavic Linguistics. His current book project is entitled The Syntax of Non-Agreement in Slavic.

Before coming to Bucknell, Professor Lavine taught courses in linguistics and Czech language at Princeton University and various levels of Russian language at Wellesley College and Harvard University. At Bucknell he teaches courses in linguistics, Russian language, and Russian and East European civilization.
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jlavine/

rofessor Robert Beard, emeritas, taught Russian at Bucknell for 35 years. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan and came to Bucknell in the fall of 1965. In 1968 he established Bucknell's first Russian major. Mr. Beard took an avid interest in developing on-line learning tools, and he was instrumental in creating Bucknell's Russian web pages, which have won several awards. He retired from Bucknell and from academia in June 2000. He is currently pursuing a new career developing on-line linguistics tools. The Bucknell Russian Program gratefully acknowledges his contribution to this site.

Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837
© 1996 Robert Beard