The Future of Language Instruction in the U.S.: Challenges and Opportunities?

THE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND
PENN LANGUAGE CENTER
CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO ATTEND

A LECTURE

PROFESSOR JASON MERRILL
(MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY)

The Future of Language Instructions in the U.S.:
Challenges and Opportunities?

Friday, February 14, 2014
5:30 p.m.
Fisher-Bennett Hall, Room 401

This presentation will discuss trends in Russian language instruction in the context of the long-standing “crisis of the humanities” in US higher education. We will examine some of the steps that are being taken at institutions (and might possibly be taken in the future) to address this crisis, both in Russian language and in the humanities in general.

Since 2009, Professor Merrill has served as the Director of the renowned Middlebury College Kathryn Wasserman Davis School of Russian. He teaches courses on Russian literature, culture, and cinema and has published articles and textbooks, including "Russian Fairy Tales: A Student Reader" and "Russian Animation for Conversation" (Co-authored with Maria Alley and Julia Mikhailova). He currently is the Book Review Editor for Folklorica: The Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association.