Joining Tabyshalieva for “Urgent Panel: War in Ukraine” will be longtime Marshall biology professor Dr. Victor Fet, a native of Ukraine who grew up in Russia, and Dr. Kateryna Rudnytzky Schray, a faculty administrator and professor of English, whose family is from Ukraine and who has taught at the university level in that country. Dr. Stefan Schoeberlein, an assistant professor of English and native of Germany, will also join the panel and provide perspectives on the European Union reaction.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Dr. Robert Bookwalter, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. It is sponsored by Marshall Libraries and was initiated by Fet, who still has many friends and relatives in both Ukraine and Russia.
The four-member panel will answer questions such as why the invasion is happening, how the people of Ukraine are responding, what can the West do to stop the war and does the war threaten Europe?
The completed event is now available for viewing here: https://youtu.be/GBjWz0ViC9c
Also, at 5 p.m., Wednesday, on the Memorial Plaza, Marshall University’s Student Government Association and the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs have planned a candlelight vigil for the conflict. It is expected that brief remarks by several members of the Marshall community will also occur. Organizers say mental health experts will be available, if needed.
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Abbreviated bios of panel participants:
Victor Fet, Ph.D.- Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University. Born in Ukraine in 1955; educated in Russia; in the USA in 1988, teaching biology at Marshall since 1995. Fet is an expert in zoology, genetics, evolutionary science, biogeography, biosystematics and the history of science. He has translated and edited books on zoology and history of science. Fet has written and published six books of poetry in Russian; translated Lewis Carroll into Russian; authored essays (in Russian and English) on Carroll and Vladimir Nabokov. Over 100 literary publications in periodicals of USA and Europe. Science fantasy books: Alice and the Time Machine; Dolly’s Follies (in Russian and English). Advisory editor for Evertype (Scotland) in translating Lewis Carroll into rare languages. Editor, “Day of Russian Expat Poetry” (almanac, 2019-2022).
Stefan Schoeberlein, Ph.D. – Assistant professor of English and the director of digital humanities, Marshall University. Schoeberlein’s research focuses on the intersections of science, literature and technology in the nineteenth century. He is currently concluding work on his first monograph, based on his award-winning dissertation on the mapping of the brain in the 1800s and its impact on literary production.
Originally from Germany, he has taught at Marshall since 2018. He spent a high school exchange in Donetsk, Ukraine and still has friends in Ukraine.
Kateryna Schray, Ph.D. – Professor of English and the director of the Center for Student Success. An award-winning teacher and a productive scholar, Dr. Kateryna (Rudnytzky) Schray is the founding director of Marshall’s Center for Student Success. She joined Marshall’s English department as a medievalist and language historian in the fall of 1996. Schray was born into a thriving Ukrainian community in Philadelphia, the daughter of a prominent Ukrainian family. Her father dedicated his life’s work to advocating for human rights and religious freedom for Ukraine while it was under Soviet control, and his work became the family’s mission. Schray served several terms as coordinator of the English Language Summer Program for the Lviv Theological Academy (Lviv, Ukraine) and works closely with Ukrainian colleagues on various projects throughout the world.
Anara Tabyshalieva, Ph.D. – Associate professor, Department of History, Marshall University. Areas of specialization are history of Soviet Union and Russia, history of Asia, women, war and peace, gender issues, conflict management, human security. Teaches history of Russia and the Soviet Union; history of Asia; world history; and women, war, and peace. Served as co-editor of the United Nations University volumes Escaping Victimhood: Children, Youth and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, (Tokyo, New York, 2013) and Defying Victimhood: Women and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (Tokyo, New York, 2012).
Tabyshalieva is the recipient of several awards and fellowships including Senior Fellowship at the US Institute of Peace, Fulbright Fellowship, Dorothy Cadbury Fellowship at University of Birmingham (U.K.), and UNESCO Silk Road Fellowship. She has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation, U.S. Institute of Peace, UNESCO (France), United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations University (Japan) and Wilson Center (Washington, D.C.) for research projects.