Official public opening of the Recentring the Humanities International Symposium, with greetings from university and government representatives.

What can Ukraine offer the global humanities at a moment when the world is finally paying attention?

With Yaroslav Hrytsak, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Serhii Plokhy, Tamara Hundorova, and Natalia Khanenko-Friesen (lead)

“The World Has Never Been So Ukrainian: Challenges and Оpportunities of the Global Ukrainian Community” with Metropolitan Borys Gudziak, Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia

Ukraine is boldly and creatively confronting a veritable existential threat that has mobilized heroic military resistance, singular and systemic expression of solidarity, a cultural effervescence, and radical soul searching. Ukraine has become an epicentre and catalyst of global change. The world has watched with unprecedented awareness of Ukraine and attention to its people. Many nations, organizations, and individuals have engaged in and aided the struggle for the defense of God-given human dignity, democracy, and political, social, and religious liberties. The struggle for survival is not only military but also demographic. Hundreds of thousands have been killed and maimed, millions traumatized and forced to leave their homes and homeland. Increasing emigration and plummeting birthrates have brought the population on territory controlled by the Ukrainian government down to approximately 28 million. Ukrainian migrants have landed and are settling on six continents and in many countries that never hosted Ukrainians. The broader and greater dispersion of Ukrainians and inevitable assimilation, while creating many opportunities, leads to many questions and our search for answers.

Reception to follow from 7:30–9:00 p.m.

Four years of decolonization work have reshaped the field. What comes next, and what is the Ukrainian contribution to evolving patterns of knowledge production in the humanities?

With Marci Shore, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Vitaliy Chernetsky, and Taras Koznarsky (lead)

Conflicts are unfolding worldwide and justice is being redefined. What dialogues emerge between global discourses on justice and those in Ukraine, and what is Ukraine’s role in that rethinking?

With Oleksandra Matviichuk, Refat Chubarov, Kristina Hook, and Temitope Oriola (Lead)

Indigenous studies offers a lens that Ukrainian studies has rarely used. How can the two fields build a dialogue, and can indigeneity serve as a central analytical frame for Ukraine’s past and future?

With Alim Aliev, Rory Finnin, Martin-Oleksandr Kisly, Janush Panchenko, and Nykkie Lugosi-Schimpf (lead)

Parallel Session Track A

Ukraine’s religious communities have both held the country together and driven it apart. What will be asked of faith once the war ends?

With Heather Coleman, Borys Gudziak, Olenka Pevny, Elmira Muratova, and Frank Sysyn (Lead)

Parallel Session Track B

History is often manipulated through distorted discourse and storytelling. How can these patterns be broken, and what can Ukraine offer scholarship on propaganda and disinformation?

With Andrew Wilson, Andriy Kohut, Gelinada Grinchenko, and Oleksandr Pankieiev (Lead)

Research presentations at the intersection of emerging and established scholarship. Posters are displayed throughout the symposium, with authors present during this time session.

With Maria Ostroha and Anna Antonova (leads)

Parallel Session Track A

Displacement is reshaping Ukraine’s global diaspora on an unprecedented scale. How will this affect diaspora institutions, language education, and Ukraine’s social, political and cultural future?

With Vic Satzewich, Alla Nedashkivska, Olenka Bilash, Serhii Kvit, and Natalia Khanenko-Friesen (Lead)

Parallel Session Track B

History is understood differently by different agents. How can an unresolved past be addressed amid geopolitical uncertainty, and what can memory work in Ukraine and Europe teach global humanists?

With Serhy Yekelchyk, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Guido Hausmann, and Dominique Reill (Lead)

Eight scholars, eight tables, four rounds of twenty minutes. The audience moves on at the end of each round. Close conversation rather than talks from a podium.

With Iaroslav Kovalchuk, Olha Korniienko, Arthur McFarlane, Alexandra Shkandrij, Constance Uzwyshyn, Anna Vozna, Alexandra Wishart;,Yevhen Yashchuk, and Larysa Bilous (lead)

Political rupture places extraordinary demands on diplomacy. What makes diplomacy effective in such moments, and how might Ukrainian diplomacy shape global norms?

With Andrii Plakhotniuk, Natalka Cmoc, Roman Waschuk, Lila Roldán Vázquez, and Volodymyr Sheyko (lead)

Parallel Session Track A

Ukraine’s position has given it a form of global influence. What power does it hold at this moment, if any, and what might the political future of that power be?

With Dominique Arel, Oxana Shevel, Bohdan Krawchenko, Lila Roldán Vázquez, and David Marples (Lead)

Parallel Session Track B

When the fighting stops, Ukraine will decide what it teaches, what goes in its museums, and what becomes of the archive this war is producing. What can the discipline contribute, and what is it not equipped to do?

With Serhiy Bilenky, Andriy Zayarnyuk, Oksana Dudko, and Larysa Bilous (lead)